Ph.D thesis "The Viability of Multimedia Retrieval Systems for Marketing and Sales" by prof dr M. J. Hoogeveen
Chapter 2 A Framework for Multimedia Retrieval Systems for Marketing & Sales  

2.1. Introduction

A tripartite framework for Multimedia Retrieval Systems (MRSs) for Marketing & Sales (M&S) is given in this chapter to answer the question: what are the essential characteristics of MRSs for M&S? In the introduction it is pointed out that such a framework is necessary to characterise such systems systematically.

First, the M&S business level characteristics are discussed (see section 2.2.). MRSs for M&S are part of a demanding and turbulent business environment, which can be described in terms of its vital business objectives, its products and services provided, its tasks and processes, its employees and its customers, the types of information items that are processed and the types of supportive information systems.

Second, the system level characteristics are discussed (see section 2.3.). MRSs for M&S are Multimedia Systems (MSs) that make use of multimedia (MM) technology, and can be described in terms of information types processed and types of multimedia processing elements used.

Third, the subsystem level characteristics are discussed (see section 2.4.). MRSs for M&S make use of a customised retrieval subsystem, a retrieval engine, which can be described in terms of its integrational approach to the handling of multiple information types, and the retrieval facilities that it offers.

2.2. Developments in Marketing & Sales (M&S)

2.2.1. Introduction

The western economies have transformed into service economies in the last decades, meaning that more than half of the gross national product is produced by the service sector (Grönroos, 1990). With the heralded coming of the infobahn or data highway (Reinhardt, 1994) it is expected that our economies once more will experience a transformation, this time from a service economy towards an information economy in which quality of information is the major competitive edge for companies; we then can speak of information competition. The New Brunswick Task Force on the Electronic Information Highway (1994) estimates, optimistically, that in the year 2000 15% of the gross product of the world will be generated by information industries, and the New Brunswick Task Force foresees ongoing growth. This implies on the one hand that an information economy, in which more than 50% of a gross national product is generated by information processing activities, will appear eventually, and on the other hand that it will take many decades before the world economy will be really dominated by information industries. Let us leave these speculative grounds and review the competition of today.

Today, service firms have come to realise that competition is now so severe that offering merely technical solutions to customers is not sufficient to create a competitive edge. Even industrial manufacturing firms have to offer customers a variety of services as an integral part of their total offerings (Grönroos, 1990), as customers primarily want to have complete solutions for their business problems and needs.

Since today competition between firms is increasingly focused on service, Grönroos speaks of service competition. This increase in service competition is both market driven and technology driven. It is market driven because customers have more and more sophisticated demands; customers are in the negotiation position and able to demand more of their suppliers because of the fierce service competition between suppliers in globalising markets. Customers constantly need to update their requirements to their suppliers, because they find themselves in a fierce service competition.

The increase in service competition is also technology driven, due to the advancements in Information Technology (IT) (Porter & Millar, 1985) which enables firms to improve their quality of service, for example, by being more flexible in meeting the requirements of their customers (e.g., 'just in time') or by being more informative (e.g., by offering a helpdesk).

Improving the quality of service, the degree to which customers appreciate the services provided, is one of the main business objectives of western firms today, especially M&S firms, which are becoming more and more customer oriented. This is also experienced by PTT Telecom, particularly since the privatisation of the parent company KPN and the increase in market competition that will culminate in the complete liberalisation of the European telecommunication markets in 1998.

2.2.2. Improving the quality of service and other business objectives

It is a fundamental necessity to pay attention to the business objectives a firm wants to meet by investing in an MRS. Identifying the business objectives of an MRSs for M&S refers us to what Sol (1982, 1992) calls the systelogical problem: why or for what should we invest in an information system?

It is important to realise that investment in MRSs for M&S should lead to improvements in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, productivity or improvements that are really meaningful in another sense. Effectiveness is related to the question "are we doing the right things". Wentink & Zanders (1988) define effectiveness as the degree to which formulated goals are actually met. We can regard improving the quality of service as one of the most important effectiveness objectives for an M&S firm. Efficiency is related to the question "are we doing things right", and can be defined as the degree to which minimal resources are applied to produce a certain output. Productivity is often defined as output/input (Wentink & Zanders, 1988).

MRSs are valuable within PTT Telecom, for example, to meet business objectives such as upgrading existing services (quality of service), improving the effectiveness of marketing actions, or training the sales force efficiently.

Improving the quality of service is a vital effectiveness objective for an M&S firm wanting to survive fierce service competition. PTT Telecom is also becoming increasingly aware of the importance of improving the quality of service, this is seen as vital for the defence of its current prosperous market position and for extending its international market positions. For these reasons it is worthwhile to discuss this major business objective of an MRS in more detail. Three quality of service aspects can be distinguished:

• the quality of the products and services provided;

• the quality of the interaction between customer and supplier;

• the quality of the information about the products and services provided.

These three aspects are discussed below.

Quality of products and services provided

The basics of quality of service are, of course, to deliver good products and services at a good price to meet the expectations of the customer. This is easily said, but hard to make work in reality. Mason (1993) notes two service quality gaps in this respect: 1) wrong service quality standards are implemented, because customer needs are not really understood or well translated into service qualities, 2) a service performance gap occurs, because retail employees cannot or will not offer service at the level of customer expectations. Therefore, it is important for marketers to investigate customer satisfaction, customer needs and customer complaints.

Measures to improve the price/performance ratio of products and services are a) to improve the quality of the products and services, and b) to lower prices. In the PTT Telecom case, lowering of prices is reinforced by severe competition over prices, or price/performance ratios, in the international and mobile telecommunication mass markets. Such developments force PTT Telecom to cut costs by taking efficiency measures, to raise the productivity of employees, and to penetrate markets with higher margins. The introduction of services with more value added is one of the options for penetrating high margin markets.

Quality of the interaction between customer and supplier

The quality of the interaction between a customer and a supplier is not a neglectable factor, it refers us to personal, socially correct and friendly interacting with customers, contributing to the appreciation of services provided. This interaction is influenced heavily by security measures (e.g., barricaded bank counters), use of IT (e.g., man-machine interaction), efficiency measures (e.g., less sales people on the shop floor), and other measures. The drive for efficiency is often incompatible with the need for more personal and human customer care. It is believed by some that the 'computer with a human face' can reconcile those seemingly incompatible factors. Teleservices especially, can benefit from improved interface technology, removing the current interfacing hurdles (Jones, 1993).

A very important service quality gap (Mason et al., 1993) in this respect is not knowing what customers expect. The causes of this are probably a lack of sound market research, a failure to interact well with customers to get a clear idea of what their expectations are, and too many bureaucratic organisational layers which separate floor level personnel and management. Correct handling of customer complaints and suggestions can close this gap, and for this reason PTT Telecom gives a high priority to increasing customer care by the correct handling of customer complaints and suggestions.

Quality of the information about products and services provided

The quality of product and service information is a matter of effective, but realistic, communication of what the benefits and characteristics of products and services are Mason et al. (1993) noted in this respect a service quality gap which occurs when promises do not match delivery.

For example, it is a crucial element of good customer care that customers get correct answers on their questions when purchasing telecommunication products. This is part of customer support when customers encounter problems, such as bugs and errors in the licensed electronic mail software packages they use.

MRSs can play a role in improving the quality of service for these three aspects, namely in:

• getting more insight into customer needs and requirements, for example, by a teleshop system that presents now and then, short questionnaires to users in an attractive and easy-to-handle way;

• giving a more realistic view of products and services to customers to prevent unrealistic expectations, for example, by using a sales system that visualises and simulates products usage and the services provided;

• supporting sales conversations between sales people and customers, for example, by providing a system with which a sales person can help a customer to visualise his current and future data communication situation and the alternative ways his needs can be met;

• effective and attractive communication of product and services information to motivate people, for example, in the form of interactive advertisement with gaming elements.

2.2.3. Types of products and services

PTT Telecom offers a broad variety and deep assortment of telecommunication products and services. These products and services range from telephone connections and telephones to Videotex services and the required hardware equipment.

MRSs for M&S may have several functions for PTT Telecom with regard to the provision of products and services. The first function is that they can be used to support the marketing and selling of products and services. Such sales support systems must often contain realistic representations of the products and services to support their recognition or to improve the marketing of these products and services. The recognition of products and services is, for example, important for a sales employee who helps a customer select white telephones which are in stock, but not in the shop. Another example is that MRSs with an M&S support function may be offered as a supplementary service to customers in the form of an MM manual of the switchboard just bought.

A second function is that MRSs may function to produce and distribute product and services related information. An example of this is a publishing system for the production of glossy leaflets or setting up an on-line maintenance database.

A third function is that MRSs for M&S may enter the service portfolio of PTT Telecom, for example, in the form of an MM successor to Videotex. This is a type of MM Value Added Network Service offering on-line retrieval facilities to access remote M&S databases. An existing application is the presentation of the shoe sales stock of a shoe factory to its retail customers.

Such MRSs may also be used as the vehicle to distribute interactive videos to tele-ordering consumers. One can envision PTT Telecom offering access to a telemall, a teleshop environment, which provides the customer with 3D views of products, and saving the customer with little spare time from physically having to go and purchase the items available.

2.2.4. Types of tasks and processes

It is important to include the types of M&S tasks and processes supported or performed by an MRS in the framework. The reason for this is that business objectives are often formulated in terms of improvements in task and process performance. From this we can derive system requirements.

M&S are, apart from business processes like network service management, important business processes for PTT Telecom. M&S processes in general are believed to benefit from MRSs, for example, in the form of MM kiosks (Josephson, 1991).

In this section we will only consider M&S processes that are either candidates for support by MRSs or that are candidates for being performed by MRSs. An example of the latter is an MM kiosk that performs the tasks of a sales assistant.

Tasks can be defined as discrete units of work at a micro level, performed by human workers or by information systems. Tasks can have a primary or secondary nature, and they can be more or less structured. Selling telecommunication services is, for example, a primary task of PTT Telecom sales employees, and includes both structured and ill-structured aspects. Customer interaction is ill-structured, but noting an order for a simple product is relatively structured, i.e., filling in a form.

The M&S tasks and processes that seem to benefit from MRSs have one or more of the following aspects in common:

• quality of communication - getting across the message - is very important;

• M&S information is presented to a customer, and therefore needs to be polished;

• promotion, using marketing media ranging from broadcasting to narrowcasting;

• MM information is used coherently to present audio-visually products and services, information types included are: video, music, speech, text, graphics, photographs, animations, etc.;

• a dialogue, including questions and answers, between customers and marketing and sales departments; this dialogue is backed up by product managers, who in their turn function as customers in their dialogue with their suppliers;

• a focus on transactions (i.e., goods or services are ordered);

• large M&S databases are used.  

Figure 2. Stylised overview of M&S processes within PTT Telecom, grouped into sales, marketing and policy & support.

A stylised overview of M&S processes within PTT Telecom is given in fig. 2. I have chosen such a stylised representation because PTT Telecom is in a permanent process of reorganisation, and more exact representations would be outdated within a year. The M&S processes are clustered into three groups. At the left are the processes with direct market and customer contact: marketing and sales. Within PTT Telecom marketing and sales are separated, as is the case within many M&S organisations that have passed the first stages of growth (Kotler, 1991). The sales outlets are mainly organised regionally; only international accounts are serviced from the headquarters. Marketing functions are mainly situated at the headquarters, but many of the operational tasks are delegated to the telecommunication regions. To the right are a number of heterogeneous M&S processes which are referred to by the collective term 'policy & support'. These processes are predominantly centralised.

Marketing

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organisational objectives (Kotler, 1991). The main business philosophy with regard to marketing is that the key to achieving organisational goals consists of determining the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfaction more effectively and efficiently than competitors.

Marketing is often performed by separate marketing organisations within an M&S firm. According to Burnett (1993) a marketing organisation is governed by a marketing plan, which is the central instrument for directing and co-ordinating marketing effort. Burnett sees this plan as just one part of a strategic plan, which provides direction for the entire organisation. He describes further that a marketing plan is defined in close co-operation with central staff and consists of basic decisions on total marketing expenditure, marketing mix, and marketing allocation. Marketing mix is the set of marketing tools that a firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target market; McCarthy popularised a four-factor classification of these tools called the four Ps: product, price, place (i.e., distribution) and promotion (Jain, 1990; Kotler, 1991).

A promotion plan is, according to Burnett, derived from the marketing plan, and can be seen as an operationalisation of strategic marketing objectives in terms of marketing actions, i.e. promotions. Reality, however, is often unruly and does not behave in accordance with Burnett's ideas. Nevertheless, in the case of PTT Telecom we can indeed distinguish between the strategic plan, marketing plan and promotion plan as described by Burnett.

The product life cycle with regard to M&S starts with product and service management. Product and service managers within the PTT Telecom Business Units are extremely interested in how their products and services perform, since they are eager to meet their targets in terms of sales volume per product/service. Therefore they want the latest information about turnover per product/service per market segment. This information may be provided by conventional sales related information systems. Product managers are also extremely interested in ways to communicate their product information effectively to sales people and to their markets. This requires a lot of fine-tuning between market departments and sales departments in the regions. In larger M&S firms, such as PTT Telecom, it is a major problem that product managers are oversupplied with product information by their suppliers, and they in their turn, oversupply their sales force with product information. As a consequence, communication is not as effective as wished.

Product managers and marketers depend for their decisions on market research (Jain, 1990; Ingram & LaForge, 1992). Market research is the research that deals with information about trends within product-market combinations, and the buying behaviour of current and potential customers: who they are, why they buy a product or service, where they buy it, when they buy it, how they buy it, etc. Often, in practice, market research is used interchangeably with the term marketing research (Jain, 1990), but, marketing research, in addition to market research, also deals with information relative to marketing mix variables: product, price, distribution (place), and promotion. Both market research and marketing research can be supported by Marketing Information Systems (see paragraph 2.2.7.). Decisions on marketing mix variables are often made by product and service managers, by marketing managers, and by outlet managers.

Within the marketing departments that have actual contact with the market, either directly or indirectly via the sales outlets, marketing actions are prepared and carried out, and continuous gathering and analysis of market information is performed. The latter is called market intelligence (Jain, 1990). Marketing actions range from huge TV campaigns to more limited marketing actions like special offers in shops. Within PTT Telecom, nation wide marketing actions are prepared by the central Business Units. The execution of limited marketing actions is performed by the regionally organised sales outlets. The major ingredients of promotion (marketing actions) are according to Burnett (1993):

• Directory advertising, by placing advertisements in business to business registers like the Thomas Register in the USA with 60,000 pages. Commonly used directories in the Netherlands are the "bedrijven voor bedrijven" (business-to-business) directory and the "Gouden gids" (yellow pages). The main advantage of directory advertising is that it uses highly credible media, directories/registers, and directories are the basic purchasing tool for many buyers (Reeder et al., 1991). A drawback is that the medium has a low attention value, i.e., unless buyers purchase directories for use, advertising in this medium is not seen.

• Consumer media, like TV, radio, newspapers and magazines, which can be very effective in spite of the fact that these media have a rather 'shot gun' approach with small percentages of the publicity hitting a target.

• Direct Marketing (DM), most often related to database marketing, is increasingly applied in marketing. According to the Direct Marketing Association, DM "is an interactive system of marketing which uses one or more advertising media to effect a measurable response and/or transition at any location" (Burnett, 1993). The availability of sophisticated marketing databases with information about consumer characteristics and behaviour, is considered indispensable for DM. Contact just those and only those who are in your target audience. DM is distinct from indirect marketing in that: DM staff sells directly to the consumer/customer bypassing the retailer. DM is not awareness advertising but direct-response advertising. DM relies more on direct order marketing or direct response selling than personal selling (Burnett, 1993). Vehicles like direct mail and telemarketing are often used for DM.

 

MRSs for marketing can be introduced for various reasons, some examples are given below.

• Promising new marketing media, such as CD-i and TV-Interactive (Frost & Sullivan , 1992), are used to convey the marketing message more effectively and to obtain direct response.

• New electronic services and products are provided with sophisticated and attractive user interfaces, so that they become self-marketing, for example, a news on demand service as part of a virtual market service that makes itself known to the subscribers of the virtual market service. The news on demand service can make itself known by giving some kind of a signal to the subscriber whenever he starts to use his virtual market service, or by being presented in a yellow pages services list. The signal might take the form of a short commercial popping up in a window.

• The creation of marketing actions can be supported effectively by MRSs that access marketing databases containing already available material, like product photographs, TV commercials, and product and service descriptions. One can imagine that already available video, photo and audio materials are retrieved from an archive and reused for a new marketing action.

• Direct access to market research databases may be needed as well as access to order systems offering sales figures and systems offering customer profiles for market research purposes. Marketers need to have a good view of current developments in their markets, the performance of product and service lines, and customer profiles in relation to their purchasing behaviour. For example, if external sources (for example, a graphic IDC, YankeeGroup or OVUM report electronically retrieved) indicate that a market segment is growing tremendously, but the order systems indicate that the company's product lines are underperforming then the marketers must take action.

Now that 'time to market' is a competitive weapon, another example would be a system to obtain a fast graphic 3D presentation and textual explanation of a competitor's new product. Such information can prove vital for taking the right counter measures in time.

Sales

Four main types of sales outlets are distinguished within PTT Telecom: personal sales, shop sales, telephone sales, and teleservice sales. For business to business sales, personal sales contact by sales staff and account managers is extremely important. Medium and large firms, especially, enjoy such special attention. Smaller accounts are often treated in the same way as small consumers with less personal care than larger accounts. Shop sales are an important sales outlet for the consumer market, via the Primafoon shops of PTT Telecom, and business market, via the PTT Telecom Business Centres. Telephone sales are a kind of direct sales, because there is no retailer in-between the supplier and the customer. Telephone sales are an increasingly important sales outlet for PTT Telecom for the consumer and small order business market. Teleservice sales, by means of systems such as Videotex, exclude the human intermediary, and uses completely automated financial transaction handling mechanisms. In the Netherlands, teleservice sales are mainly used for business to business applications.

For all types of sales the most important performance measures are presumably sales volume (output in units or in currency) related to costs (input), and customer satisfaction, which is a critical success factor and can be seen as a predictor for future turnover.

MRSs are believed to be useful for raising sales volume per input costs, and improving customer satisfaction. The idea is that MRSs help to raise sales volume by offering a better presentation and more attractive explanation of services, by offering a more flexible service to customers and by improved customer satisfaction and customer relations. A highly flexible service means here a service that customers can purchase at any time, in any way, and from any location they want. For example, by shopping in the comfort of the living room at night when most shops are closed.

MRSs can also help to reduce sales costs. An example is replacing sales staff with computerised sales assistants (point of sales or point of purchase) in the low service/low prices segment as a measure to cut sales costs with the loss of some quality of service. We can consider human sales assistance to be superior to computerised sales assistance, for this reason, human sales assistance will probably stay an indispensable service element in the high prices/high services market segments. In the high services/high prices segment of the business market it is not unusual to take customers to MM theatres and lavish on them commercial information that is pleasurable to the senses.

Policy & Support

In the case of PTT Telecom, policy and support processes are centralised, and are of a secondary nature. Here, only the policy and support processes that are relevant for the MRS for M&S discussion are elaborated in some more detail: public relations (PR), training, production of marketing information items, and the management of marketing information.

Public relations, the main objective of which is to create a positive corporate image and stimulate free publicity, is a general supportive process. PR certainly has many similarities with marketing, for example, in the use of mass media. In the case of PTT Telecom, PR is performed by the IECT (Internal and External Communication Telecom) staff organisation.

The diversity of sales people involved in the sales process requires tailor made training courses for specific target groups. More and more MRSs are used to support or replace training staff.

The production of marketing information items like conventional paper catalogues is an important task performed by catalogue editors. The catalogue editors need to retrieve marketing data from marketing archives and product information systems to update their catalogue with topical information. With the introduction of MM catalogues, catalogue production transforms into the production of MRSs.

Within large M&S firms like PTT Telecom marketing information represents a huge capital investment. It includes company videos, commercials, photographs (sometimes using expensive models), leaflets, catalogues, etc.; recently interactive products on new marketing media, like computer disks, TV-I and CD-ROM, have been added to this list. The management of this marketing capital is performed by marketing archives. The main purpose of such archives is to stimulate reuse of material already produced and in this way save on costs, to facilitate quick marketing actions, and to be able to implement an effective quality control on marketing information to avoid damaging mistakes. MRSs in the form of archiving systems can support the management of this marketing capital.

Performance measures related to tasks and processes

The benefits in terms of improvements in the performance of tasks and processes need to be evaluated if MRSs are introduced in an M&S firm. Therefore we need to select performance measures. In the foregoing sections many of these performance measures have already been mentioned. In the following three tables a structured overview is given of performance measures in relation to task and processes and the MRSs that are used to support meeting business objectives (target values of performance measures). Table 1 gives an overview of measures for marketing processes and tasks, table 2 gives an overview of measures for sales processes and tasks, and table 3 gives an overview of measures for supportive M&S processes and tasks.

Table 1. Overview of marketing processes and tasks, related performance measures, and MRSs that are used to support these processes.

The effectiveness of marketing actions, which can be very costly, is strictly monitored by marketers. For example, if an advertisement campaign about Greenpoint is run by PTT Telecom it is vital to know how effective this campaign is in terms of changes in sales volume. Such information is input for decisions on using different marketing media or not, proceeding with the campaign or not, repositioning the product or not, etc. Useful performance measures for marketing actions are the response rate to a marketing action or the awareness of products or the supplier. If it is not possible to isolate response rate or awareness one can take a measure like Gross Rating Points.

The performance of a product or service is also strictly monitored by product managers within PTT Telecom. We can think of performance measures like sales volume per product, market share per product, net profit of product, etc. In a more aggregate form this information is important for the management of an M&S firm because it shows the performance of the firm as a whole.

Market(ing) research and market intelligence have more qualitative performance measures, namely insight into customer behaviour, insight into market tendencies, and insight into the usefulness of marketing mix variables for certain product market combinations.

Table 2. Overview of sales processes and tasks, related performance measures, and MRSs used to support these processes.

The sales force especially, is judged by its sales volume, net profit and customer satisfaction (see table 2). One can imagine that MRSs for sales processes and tasks should increase sales volume, cut costs to improve net profit, and improve the quality of service level to improve customer satisfaction. PTT Telecom investigates customer satisfaction often in both the consumer and business market with regard to its services, and publishes the results in the form of customer satisfaction barometers. In the near future, an MM teleservice may, if it really fulfils a market need and the infrastructure is publicly accessible, lead to a larger market share and higher turnover for M&S firms investing in it.

M&S support processes and tasks are more diverse than operational tasks, and therefore the performance measures are also more diverse (see table 3). Costs are often important since back office tasks, policy making and M&S support tasks are often considered to be overheads. They are often considered to be overheads because they do not, directly and/or visibly, contribute to a better financial result. Declining margins on products and services are in many cases compensated for by cutting costs.

Corporate image is an important PR performance measure and it can be determined by using large-scale surveys.

Performance when training sales staff can be measured by testing product and service knowledge and skill level, by measuring training costs per trainee, and measuring waiting times for courses.

The quality of information dimensions and the cost per produced information item, are particularly important for the production and management of marketing information.

Table 3. Overview of M&S support processes and tasks, related performance measures, and MRSs used to support these processes.

2.2.5. Types of people involved

The types of people involved is an important characteristic of the framework. The effective support of M&S employees and their customers, by MRSs for M&S is fundamental to being able to meet determined business objectives.

What are the issues and characteristics of M&S employees that can be supported by MRSs? First of all, it is very important to note that most M&S employees do not want to interact with complex systems. Moreover, many personal sales people, and shop and telephone sales people within PTT Telecom, are relatively untrained IT users. So general M&S support systems need to offer an easy to use interface. Usability testing (ISSUE, 1993b) is extremely important to develop the most efficient and effective retrieval interface. In the support departments of PTT Telecom, however, specialists who require more sophisticated functionality can be found. Such specialists like catalogue editors, archivists of marketing information, and market researchers, demand more sophisticated retrieval interfaces and it is affordable to train such a relatively limited group of people to handle the more complex functions of MRSs.

From the point of view of an M&S firm, one of the biggest advantages of MRSs is probably the shortening of the distance to the customer. This distance is shortened by using MRSs for direct marketing and direct sales. When considering general purpose MRSs for direct marketing or direct sales it is important to realise that business customers and private customers form a large and heterogeneous group.

In general, consideration of the diversity in customers leads to the selection of public systems that have a low threshold: they need to be very easy to use, cheap, and standardised (Gili Manzanaro et al., 1992). Easy to use implies polished MM interfaces with only simple retrieval options.

2.2.6. Type of information items processed

The type of information items processed is naturally an important characteristic of MRSs for M&S. Dur (1992) defines an information item as an object processed by workers during information processing tasks. The main purpose of ISs is the effective support of this information processing.

Many types of information items are processed within M&S organisations. In this section we focus on information items processed by MRSs. MRSs are used for the production, presentation and/or delivery of:

• primary information items, information items that are part of the output of the primary process of a firm, an examples is an information product like a telephone book on CD-ROM;

• secondary information items, information items that directly or indirectly support one or more primary processes of a firm; for example, information items forming a part of marketing actions (e.g., an advertisement in a newspaper for a mobile phone), customer care information items (e.g., a consumer catalogue), and M&S support information items (e.g., a manual for a telephone switch); these information items are by nature multimedial.

 

Information items in the M&S processes already contain all audio-visual information types in changing combinations. Therefore, MM is not really new for M&S, it just adds the interactive and combinatory dimension of MM technology. Interactive MM variants of non-electronic M&S information items are, for example, MM catalogues, interactive TV commercials, and interactive MM business presentations. The number of interactive MM variants on non-electronic information items is growing rapidly. These MM variants have in common that they are useful as marketing media, because of their audio-visual nature. Since these marketing media are relatively new, no consensus as yet exists about the qualitative media effect. The qualitative media effect is defined as what the medium does to enhance or depreciate a message after the medium has delivered the message (Burnett, 1992). Interactive marketing media have a more sophisticated outlook, and are positioned as 'innovative' by several advertising agencies promoting the use of these marketing media. If an M&S organisation prefers to promote a conservative and sober image, interactive marketing media may not be the best choice.

2.2.7. Type of M&S Support Systems

When characterising an MRS for M&S it is useful to identify what type of M&S Support System it is, and what types of other M&S Support Systems are involved. It is useful for two reasons. First, this characteristic makes it easy to identify similar systems and to make comparisons between these systems. If MRSs are introduced the value added of these systems when compared to their non-MR predecessors should be convincing as it should not be forgotten that ISs (here MRSs for M&S), should contribute to a more efficient and effective functioning of the organisation (Sol, 1988). Second, it is important to be able to identify interfaces with related M&S Support Systems.

So, the types of M&S Support Systems is a useful M&S characteristic. Several types of M&S Support Systems are present:

• marketing ISs;

• business presentation systems;

• electronic catalogues;

• sales support systems;

• MM kiosks;

• teleshopping systems;

• commercial on-line marketing databases;

• sales training systems;

• electronic catalogue publishing environments.

These M&S Support Systems, which often have an overlap in functionality, are discussed below in more detail.

Marketing IS

Jain (1990) describes a Marketing IS as an IS which offers a formal way to structure the information flow through the three modes: marketing intelligence, market research, and marketing research. Marketing ISs give information about market potentials, consumer and customer attitudes and behaviour, distribution channels, communication media, market sources, and new products. Moreover, Marketing ISs give competitive information, information about foreign exchange, prescriptions and laws, resources, and general (e.g., macro economic) conditions. MR aspects of Marketing ISs include, for example, retrieval of illustrated documents like market forecasts by market research institutes, newspaper and magazine articles, annual reports of competitors and business partners, or marketing plans.

Business presentation system

Business presentations of products and services are given at conferences, fairs, and for large accounts by account managers and personal salesmen. MM presentations (Hooper Woolsey, 1991) meet the demands of sophisticated audiences for high quality packaging of the message. Since, the quality of a presentation can make the difference between receiving or missing an order, some sales people are eager to use such sophisticated presentation systems, for example, Macromedia Action! from Macromedia and Harvard Graphics from Software Publishing Corporation.

Presentations of products and services can also be given in shops. On-going video's are well known, but boring. Interactive presentations, at the other hand, are more fun. These interactive presentations are used to support shop personnel in their customer contacts or are used by customers on themselves.

Electronic catalogue

An electronic catalogue, is the electronic and interactive variant of a paper catalogue. It offers product and service descriptions, illustrations, technical explanations, selling arguments, price information, etc. An important advantage of on-line electronic catalogues is that they can be kept highly topical. For example, they may contain the most recent prices. (Fast outdating of prices is the reason that prices are omitted from most printed catalogues, which is annoying for customers and sales staff who have to look-up prices on separate price lists). MM and retrieval capabilities are another advantage of electronic catalogues, enabling effective presentations and effective retrieval. In the case of off-line electronic catalogues, the low reproduction and distribution costs of large circulations of CD-ROM based media is money saving. This is the reason why IT suppliers like Digital Equipment Corp. deliver their high end products only with accompanying electronic manuals on CD-ROM in stead of shipping stacks of paper manuals to their customers. For mail order companies, like Wehkamp in the Netherlands, it is cheaper to produce their glossy catalogues on CD-ROM or CD-i rather than in an expensive paper version. As soon as their customers have the right infrastructure at their disposal, it will be useful and far less expensive to produce only electronic catalogues. Only in case of very sophisticated MM catalogues is the production cost of the electronic version much higher than those of a paper version.

On-line MM catalogues (Philips, 1993) are in their infancy. A hybrid example is the IBM Direct catalogue on CD-ROM offering large accounts access to the complete IBM assortment and on-line ordering functionality using a modem. Large accounts can also on-line download the IBM Direct catalogue.

Sales Support System (SSS)

Sales Support Systems are ISs that include all relevant information for sales employees to support their tasks, like preparing for sales conversations, demonstrating products and services related information, intake of orders etc. SSSs offer among others, access to assortment information, an order entry module, a complaint registration module, and a news module giving topical information about current marketing actions. Management information can be aggregated from the order database to monitor sales performance by sales managers, product managers and marketers. Reeder et al. (1991) stress the importance of sales force automation to make sales employees more productive, to help the sales manager to manage the sales force more effectively, and make relations with customers more profitable. MR aspects enter SSSs when, for example, illustration material is included, and sales data needs to be visualised for sales managers and product managers. One can sometimes note the inclusion of a picture of a customer (contact person) for identification.

MM kiosk

An MM kiosk, in the form of a Point Of Information (POI), a Point Of Purchase (POP) or a Point Of Sales (POS) system (Josephson, 1991), is a replacement of or a support tool for a sales employee. An example of this is the POI called Futuropolis with marketing information about subscribing firms, which was placed in libraries in 1994 (Explainer, 1993). As an example of another POI one can imagine an MM kiosk in a do it yourself shop, that allows customers to select materials for their home renovation by trying them out in the kiosk, which visualises the effects. If the kiosk includes a transaction component it becomes a POS; the MM kiosk at the Dutch flower exhibition (Floriade), allowing the user to order tulip bulbs, and to pay for them by credit card or debit card is an example. If the kiosk is able to deliver the products instantly it becomes a POP. A POP can be compared to the classic vending machine. Vending machines now sell products ranging from coffee and cigarettes to personal care products and tickets, and are located in factories, offices, hospitals, public locations, etc. We can imagine that the user interface can be improved by an MM display of products, and that more products can be purchased by POPs than is the case now with the current generation of vending machines. A good example of a POP is an MM kiosk which shows fragments of video films that can be selected by a customer. If the customer makes a selection and pays for it, the video is instantly recorded on a video tape and spat out after a few minutes.

As an M&S aid, MM kiosks are extremely effective in drawing attention to what is being sold or promoted (Templeton, 1993). Roper (1993) gives a number of examples of MM kiosk for retail where the implementation of MM kiosks leads to gains in efficiency, to increases in sales volume, and to an improved quality of service. An MM kiosk can contain catalogue information and other marketing information, company information, game elements for attractiveness reasons, and a transaction module for ordering and paying. Since customers really want to purchase and buy something with an MM kiosk, the transaction module is extremely important. Roper (1993) sees the use of a card payment system (credit cards, travel cards, etc.) as a vital element of retail automation with MM kiosks. One of the advantages of an MM kiosk is that it offers the possibility to show a broad variety and a deep assortment of items without the need to physically expose these items in a large shopping area and keep them in stock.

Teleshopping system

Teleshopping is still in its infancy, although about 5,000 electronic shopping systems in the US provide information and transaction services in diverse industries, including gaming (lotteries), ticketing (airlines), travel services (hotel reservation), and general merchandise (cosmetics, fashion wear, consumer electronics, home improvement, and small appliances) (Mason et al., 1993). In Europe teleshopping is particularly advanced in France where French Telecom distributed their Minitel Videotex terminals for free.

In the Netherlands, business to business teleshopping and teleordering is growing faster than teleshopping by consumers. This may change with the introduction of MM. TV-I systems, like TV Answer from TV Answer Inc. (Frost & Sullivan, 1992), offer a more sophisticated user interface to consumers. AT&T started a TV-I market test in Orlando in 1994, that is drawing world wide attention. Consumers can interact with TV programs, like commercials, by using their remote control in combination with a Silicon Graphics graphical user interface displayed on their TV. They can request background information and place an order. These systems are also used outside the M&S sphere, for example, for voting. a fundamental question is whether consumers will accept these systems or not. If the answer is positive, then investment in teleshopping systems will probably show a snowball effect.

Commercial on-line marketing databases

Access to commercial on-line marketing databases is a valuable extension of a Marketing IS, since these external data sources help to perceive market trends and developments. A study by Reeder et al. (1991) with responses from thirty-four large US firms, each with over 5,000 employees and over $100 million in sales, indicated that computerised data sources are used an average of 61.2 times per year by each firm, an average far exceeding that of any other secondary data source. Examples of commercial on-line databases are the Dow Jones News/Retrieval with up to the minute business and financial information, Inspec with article descriptions on technical subjects, Disclosure Database with extracts of more than 12,000 companies based on their Securities and Exchange Commission reports, and electronic and interactive versions of newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post (Lesly, 1993). Slowly, commercial on-line databases are offering MM data and a higher level of interactivity. This is true for Disclosure and the electronic newspapers which need to compete with printed versions on attractiveness and ease of use.

Sales training system

Sales training systems are receiving more and more attention. In general, one speaks of MM Assisted Instruction (MAI) as a continuation of Computer Assisted Instruction. Heller (1990) speaks of Hypermedia Assisted Instruction when hypermedia facilities are also included. The tremendous R&D interest in Hypermedia Assisted Instruction justifies this distinction (Hoogeveen, 1993b). The reasons for the introduction of MAI for sales training systems are that these systems are believed to:

• be more time effective, for many types of trainees, than conventional courses (Nicolson et al., 1991);

• save training and travel costs when they replace conventional courses and human teachers (Kustermans, 1991);

• reduce course waiting time for new sales people when the training capacity is limited.

Catalogue publishing environment

Within PTT Telecom the production of a variety of catalogues to support its diverse sales force, is performed partly in house. The editing of catalogue texts, graphics, images and the lay-out is performed using software and hardware tools, which together, form an electronic catalogue publishing environment. With the rise of electronic MM catalogues the need for MM publishing facilities has grown. Small companies can put out the job to MM publishing subcontractors, larger companies like PTT Telecom tend to retain more control over the publishing process, and contract out less.

The production of MM catalogues is a specialist job. The retrieval facilities need the special attention of database & retrieval specialists, and human factor engineers (ISSUE, 1993a). As these types of expertise are becoming increasingly available within the market, the setting up of an in house MM publishing environment is now within the reach of a large company like PTT Telecom.

2.2.8. Conclusion

A number of business characteristics of M&S situations are discussed in relation to MRSs in the foregoing sections. These characteristics seem useful as part of a descriptive framework for MRSs for M&S. The characteristics are not completely unique to my research domain, nevertheless, domain specific accents can be distinguished.

In summary, I argue that the M&S business characteristics of MRSs can be described in terms of:

• meeting vital M&S business objectives in terms of efficiency, effectiveness (especially quality of service), productivity or meaningfulness; more specifically M&S business objectives can often be formulated in terms of reaching a certain level of marketing performance (e.g., a certain minimum response rate for a marketing action) or sales performance (e.g., a higher sales volume per sales employee).

• the types of products and services provided by the M&S firm and represented in the MRS; in the case of innovative MR services and MR products MRSs are also required to develop and deliver these products and services;

• the types of M&S tasks and processes supported (grouped into sales, marketing, and policy & support) in relation to performance measures; in general, one can also distinguish between primary and secondary, and structured and ill-structured tasks and processes;

• the types of people involved that need to be supported by MRSs for M&S, like marketers, shop assistants, telephone sales assistants, and their private and business customers; with regard to the level of IT expertise necessary to use MRSs one can distinguish between IT specialists, general IT users, and public IT users.

• the types of information items processed; these can be part of the MR products or MR services delivered, and are used for marketing, for customer care, or are used to support the marketing and sales staff;

• the types of M&S Support Systems that are upgraded towards, or replaced by, MRSs for M&S, or need to be connected to MRSs for M&S.

Figure 3. Summary of characteristics of MRS for M&S at the business level.

2.3. Developments in Multimedia Systems (MSs)

2.3.1. Introduction

In the introductory chapter 1, I stated that MRSs for M&S are Multimedia Systems (MSs) with a clear retrieval component, that supports one or more M&S processes. An MS is an information system used to process or present MM information. In this section the developments which characterise MSs are discussed, in order to identify the most discriminating MS elements for the framework.

According to OVUM (Jeffcoate et al., 1993) the market for MSs is growing fast. MSs are being developed for a still growing number of application fields (Hoogeveen, 1993a). M&S is one of the most promising business application fields. It is very important to note, for the growing acceptance of MSs, that the price/performance ratio of MM products and services, MM hardware and software, is improving sharply. One can argue that when the prices for MM products and services drop to the level at which non-MM predecessors were accepted by the market, MM products will enter the office and the home in the form of upgrades and replacement investments. An example of such a process is that the current generation of PCs shipped - the 486 PCs, the Pentium-PCs and Power PCs - meet Multimedia PC requirements. They can be easily upgraded with a CD-ROM player and audio and video boards for more demanding MM purposes.

With the further evolution of MSs, and a further increase in processing, storage, transmission and functionality, it is believed strongly that a transition from MSs to Virtual Reality systems will gradually take place (Ramanathan et al., 1992; Vermeulen et al., 1993).

In general, the development of MSs meets the need of people to be more free in what information they process and how they process that information. One can see an MS as any integrated system which combines seemlessly, the data processing functions of the computer, the video and the audio processing functions of the TV and audio set, and the communication function of telephone platforms within one system. Hence, MSs are really characterised by the integration of many heterogeneous ITs (TTP, 1992). If one uses human perception as a metaphor an MS is an IS with a voice, with ears, with eyes and with some basic intelligence for natural language processing.

The developments in MSs also meets the need of people to have more and more functionality at their fingertips, independent of space (where you are) and time (when you want to do something). A sales person can communicate (talk, fax, mail, retrieve etc.) at his office, on the way to an appointment, at home or elsewhere. Instead of watching TV programs selected by a broadcasting company we can put together our own personal program and select, from an electronic videotheque, the videos that we want to see for a time that suits us.

An important, related tendency is that IT products are becoming more and more personalised, for example, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and Personal Intelligent Communicators (PICs). PDAs are very small computers with pen-interfaces and simple versions of PC applications. Due to a lack of quality in the handwriting recognition software they are not as yet well-received in the market. PICs are similar products that support, for example, sending wirelessly a fax from the beach. The idea is that we can take these products along in our pocket, as we would an agenda, and that they support us in our routine tasks. With every new generation these products become more easy to handle and more powerful. Extrapolation of these developments may lead us into an ubiquitous computing future. In such a future one can imagine ubiquitous computing environments in which science fiction realities of talking and listening computers with multimodal, intelligent and powerful decision support (Sol, 1982; Sol, 1991) features are real. We should, however, be cautious not to overestimate such IT developments.

As stated, an MS is an integrated system for data processing, audio and video processing and communication. This does not imply that we move towards just one single integrated MM platform, one can note a proliferation tendency as opposed to an integration tendency: with the combination of TV, computer and telephone technologies many new hybrids come into existence. Examples of hybrids are:

• a computer with telephone functions;

• a telephone with a built in computer for storing addresses and a screen for viewing one's conversation partner and presenting discussion documents;

• a TV with modem connection for passing on viewer responses and computing power in set-top boxes for gaming and teleshopping.

Such developments with regard to the three platforms mentioned lead not only to excitement, but also to a lot of market confusion and a constant cry for standardisation, however, de jure (official) standardisation itself often contributes further to the confusion, since it is not clear in all cases if de jure standards will be accepted by industry and the market.

In the following sections the definition of types of media given by the ISO work group MHEG (Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group) are used as a thread. Next, the main MM processing elements of an MS are discussed from a functional perspective, and finally, the MS characteristics which are included in the framework are summarised.

2.3.2. Types of media involved

The term media is used here in the sense of means to transfer and distribute information. Discussions about MM often lead to a Tower of Babel. MHEG (ISO/IEC, 1992b) distinguishes five types of media (see figure 4): perception, representation, presentation, transmission and storage media. I define MM as the integration of multiple perception media (information types). To process MM information, an MS needs to support multiple representation media. Though not unique to MSs, it is often necessary that they need to make use of multiple presentation, transmission and storage media. Before defining and discussing these types of media it is important to note that MSs make heavy demands on the storage, processing and transmission capacities of the IT products involved. This is due to the size of MM files and MM data streams (e.g., one second uncompressed video results in a file of 20 MB). Figure 4. Types of media after MHEG (ISO/IEC, 1993).

Perception media or information types

MSs are multimedial in the sense that they can handle and present multiple perception media or information types (see figure 5). A perception medium is the nature of the information as perceived by the user (ISO/IEC, 1993). I prefer to use the term information type instead of perception medium, as the latter is rather ambiguous from a psychological perspective. Information types can be grouped according to our perceptual senses (see figure 5). At the leaves one can find information types like speech, music, text, graphic, still, animation and video. Auditive and visual information types especially, are included in MSs, but this can go further as is shown by Virtual Reality systems. Mixes of these information types are present in information objects: documents, files, and records. A monomedia information object contains information of just one information type. MM information objects are often composed of a number of related monomedia objects.

It is interesting to note that mixed information types also exist. For example, Teodosio & Bender (1993) review salient video stills. Salient video stills are images that do not represent one discrete moment, as does a photograph or single video frame. Rather, one image reflects the aggregate of temporal changes that occur in a moving image sequence with the salient features preserved.

  Figure 5. Information types.

Representation media

To handle and present multiple information types, multiple types of representation media must be defined and supported. A representation medium is the type of the interchanged data, which defines the nature of the information as described by its coded form (ISO/IEC, 1993). In general, for all information types at the ends of the graph in figure 5 separate representation media are defined. Examples of representation media are ASCII for text, JPEG (ISO/IEC, 1991c) for photographs, and MPEG for video and audio (ISO/IEC, 1992b).

One of the most important functions of representation media is that they offer a means for more efficient storage and communication of information. For example, MPEG1 coding can result in a compression with a factor 100-150, and JPEG coding results in a compression with a factor of about 30. Without coding many of the current MSs would not be able to function, because of technical limits to processing, storage and transmission capacity.

Representation media for MM are improving fast:

• Coding is becoming more efficient.

• The quality of the coded information is improving.

• More complex MM objects can be coded, e.g., HyTime (ISO/IEC, 1991b) for MM documents and MHEG (ISO/IEC, 1992b) for streams of MM objects.

• Standards for representation media are becoming more and more accepted. This is clearly the case for MPEG1 videos.

Presentation media

A presentation medium is the type of the physical means used to reproduce information to the user (output device, e.g., TV monitor or loudspeakers) or to acquire information from the user (input device, e.g., video camera or microphone) (ISO/IEC, 1993). The quality of the visual and auditive input and output are extremely important for MM purposes. Depending on the type of MS there are heavy requirements for the presentation media used. Some examples can be given. If photographs need to be judged then a high resolution monitor and printer are needed. If the presentation quality for commercial target groups is extremely important, one may consider CD-quality audio and TV-quality video output devices.

Transmission media

A transmission medium is the type of physical means used to transmit data (e.g., coax cable, telephone cable, etc.) (ISO/IEC, 1993).

MSs with a communication component have some important functional requirements for transmission media. These are related to the transmission bandwidth, the reliability (inversely related to the fault rate), the transmission delay, the permitted information types, and the permitted (network) topology. The most specific requirements for MM are the need for integrated data communication (not just separate speech or video) and the need for much higher bandwidths. Newly developed transmission media meet these requirements, but current communication infrastructures often fall short in meeting these requirements, particularly the bandwidth requirement. An overview of transmission media for MM communication is given by Peeters (1992).

Storage media

A storage medium is the type of physical means used to store data (ISO/IEC, 1993). Storage media are not only used to save and back-up data, but also to distribute data. The use of MM information puts heavy requirements on storage media, because of the size (in bytes) of MM files.

• Large storage capacity: at least some hundreds of megabytes. (E.g., 1 hour of MPEG1 compressed video and audio usurps about 700 MB () of media space.

• Short access time: because of their size MM data streams put a large burden on response times. The access time needs to be short for this reason. Tens of seconds may be acceptable in some cases, but tens of milliseconds is often more acceptable.

• High throughput: the storage media must allow for a throughput that is related to the level of quality of content data. MPEG1 quality needs about 1.544 Mbit/s (the indicated bitrate is between 0.384 and 10 Mbit/s). MPEG2 is meant for a high quality video; the indicated bitrate is 1.5-100 Mbit/s.

There are several types of storage media which meet these requirements: magnetic, optic, and magneto-optic. Developments in storage media are moving fast, and will, sooner or later, lift the storage bottlenecks with regard to these three requirements. The use of storage media for MM are discussed in detail elsewhere (Hoogeveen, 1993a).

2.3.3. Multimedia information processing

An MS is more than just several types of media put together in one system, because there are many additional MM information processing functions present in an MS. This is illustrated by the figure below, showing a stylised MM information processing cycle in relationship to the types of media discussed in the previous section.

We can distinguish several groups of MM information processing functions:

• Input, digitisation and coding. Information, containing various types of information, forms the input of an MS. One can think of manual text input, speech input, video input, etc. As most MSs are digital, the input information needs to be digitised (Analogue to Digital Conversion) if this has not already been done. In the case of text input the coding of information is sometimes performed directly after digitisation in the form of optical character recognition for the recognition of machine writing, and intelligent character recognition for recognition of handwriting.

Edited or ready to use audio-visual information is coded (represented) using compression algorithms to reduce the size of the audio and video files.

• Editing. Most MSs offer some kind of an editing function for the editing of content data. In the case of audio and video it is necessary to edit the digital data files before they are coded, as quality is lost every time audio and/or video data is coded or decoded. Some examples of editing are text editing, graphic design, animation production, video and audio editing. This may include, for example, SGML-editors, MHEG-editors, MPEG-editors, or just popular word processors. MM desk-top publishing also includes editors for the composition of data objects. An example of such an editor is a presentation editor or a CAD/CAM editor.

Editing is also an important part of any authoring process of an MM title or MM application. Specialist interface designers, audio and video engineers, graphic artists, etc. need to be supported in their creative tasks.

• Authoring. Coded information forms the input for the authoring process, by which an MM title or application is produced. During the authoring process a set of authoring tools, for the composing of an MM document or hypermedia document, are used to put together the edited information objects, and to program the user interaction.

• Storage, maintenance and retrieval. The MS updates (adds, changes, deletes) the MM information in an MM database. This subject is not elaborated in much depth here, as the subject is discussed extensively in section 2.4. The MM database is stored or archived using one or more storage media, and needs to be managed. MM information can be retrieved from storage media distributed physically or retrieved on-line (using transmission media) by users of the MS.

• Presentation. To present MM information the information needs to be decoded, converted to analogue and presented by one or more presentation media to the user. The way MM information is presented to the user and the choice of presentation media should be well adapted for the function the MS has for its users.

  Figure 6. Stylised functional relationships between media types and the processing cycle of MM information.

 

More key IT technologies are involved, between input and output, in MM processing than discussed. Some of these are:

• VR technology for 3D visualisation and human gesture interpretation;

• visualisation (or simulation) for visualising complex data;

• intelligent user agents for helping users with the execution of tasks;

• object orientation for more natural organisation of information and use of software;

• image processing for the digitisation, analysis and interpretation of images;

• speech technology for speech recognition, speech synthesis, and speech response;

• natural language interpretation for the parsing and translating of written and spoken language(s).

2.3.4. Conclusion

In the foregoing sections MS characteristics are discussed as part of the descriptive framework for MRSs for M&S.

To summarise, MS characteristics of MRS for M&S can be described in terms of:

• the perception media (information types) used to describe the nature of the M&S information processed by MSs;

• the types of MM information processing elements, functional elements of MSs.

 

These types of MM information processing elements are grouped as follows:

• input, including the digitisation and coding of MM information;

• editing of monomedia and MM information objects;

• authoring of MM titles and MM applications;

• storage, maintenance and retrieval of MM information in MM databases;

• presentation, including the necessary decoding and digital to analogue conversion.

 

The types of media (representation, presentation, transmission and storage media) distinguished are subordinate to these functions.

Figure 7. Summary of characteristics of MRS for M&S at the system level.  

2.4. Developments in retrieval systems

2.4.1. Introduction

In chapter 1, I argued that retrieval technology is a key technology for MRSs for M&S, as it is for ISs in general.

Nowadays, DataBase Management Systems (DBMSs) form the 'retrieval engine' of the database systems of most ISs. A DBMS supports the storage, indexing, maintenance, access, and retrieval of data by an IS. Today, many DBMSs support the relational model. DBMSs supporting a hierarchical or network data model are seen as obsolete, although many large corporate database systems are still based on the latter two models.

Well-known DBMSs such as ORACLE, INGRES, INFORMIX and DB2 were originally designed for the management of databases having structured data. Structured data is data which is structured into tables and the meaning of which depends on data definitions. This contrasts with ill structured data in documents, videos, music recordings, pictures etc.

In the past few years, leading DBMSs like ORACLE and INFORMIX have advanced in the direction of MM DBMSs (MDBMSs) by the implementing of storage and retrieval of binary large objects. SYBASE is an early example of this. Binary large objects may contain any large data file: a video file, a document file, an audio file, etc.

Most MDBMSs handle binary large objects as black boxes: it is not possible to search on the content of binary large objects, even if it contains text. This is because most DBMSs do not support advanced information retrieval facilities like full text indexing, use of inexact query arguments, and pattern recognition (Hoogeveen, Van der Meer & Sol, 1992b). Support of these, and supplementary facilities, is still the domain of Information storage and Retrieval Systems (IRSs). Examples of IRSs are BRS/Search from BRS Information Technologies, BASISplus from Information Dimensions Inc., and TOPIC from Verity.

Four main types of IRSs can be distinguished:

• Reference Systems, e.g., automated catalogues, these are used to keep track of external sources of information, whether digitised or analogue. These information systems contain references to books, documents, articles, audio and video tapes, etc.

• Document Image Systems or Optical Filing Systems are IRSs where every page of a document is scanned and stored as a bitmap in binary files. Document pages can be retrieved by keyword searches.

• Full Text Systems, where the complete texts of documents are indexed and can be searched.

• Multimedia Document Systems, these manage MM documents (Bos & Van Wijk, 1993).

Multimedia Document Systems, Document Image Systems and Optical Filing Systems sometimes offer hypermedia facilities. These facilities stem from Hypermedia Systems (HSs) like HyperCard from Apple Inc. The 'hyper' prefix indicates that non-sequential access to trunks of information by tracing hyperlinks within a document is supported (Frei & Schäuble, 1991). It is important to note that most HSs and IRSs lack the power of DBMSs for handling structured data.

MRSs for M&S make use of a customised retrieval engine (an MDBMS), this sub-system can be described in terms of its integrational approach to handling multiple information types and the essential retrieval facilities that are (indirectly) offered to the users of an MRS.

2.4.2. Types of MDBMSs

The retrieval engine used by an MRS for M&S will, in most cases, be an MDBMS, which can be characterised by the integrational approach (Saxton & Raghavan, 1990; Hoogeveen et al., 1992b) followed to combine heterogeneous retrieval facilities for the different information types. These approaches are listed below.

• Standard DBMS approach. A standard DBMS is used, and MM files are stored in directories. Additional MM database management is included in an application on top of the standard DBMS. If wanted, information retrieval facilities can be newly created as an application on top of a standard DBMS (Macleod & Crawford, 1983). A major disadvantage is that it is not possible to profit from low cost, ready for use, standard MM database management and IRS facilities. Therefore, this approach does not seem viable today.

 

• Extended DBMS approach. A DBMS is extended with MM database management facilities and, if necessary, with some IRS facilities (Saxton & Raghavan, 1990). An example is the introduction of an 'image' data type enabling storage and retrieval of medical images (Jasinsky et al., 1987). Leading RDBMS suppliers, such as ORACLE, are extending their RDBMSs with MM storage and presentation facilities.

Object Oriented DBMSs are most closely related to this second category: they enable storage of complex data types like MM documents, often offer no further IRS facilities, and use an object oriented Data Modelling Facility instead of a relational one. Due to the economic significance of the DBMS, and heavy competition between mainstream DBMS vendors, the importance of the extended DBMS approach should not be underestimated.

 

• Extended IRS approach. Research within this category has concentrated on the development of Multimedia Document Systems (Bos & Van Wijk, 1993), extending IRSs with MM features, and adding the relational model to an IRS (Crawford, 1981; Agosti et al., 1989). TOPIC is an example of an IRS supporting some MM presentation facilities.

 

• External integration approach. An MDBMS is formed by embedding several retrieval engines into a common environment, for example, a DBMS for structured data and a Multimedia Document System for ill structured MM data. A front end like UNIFACE is a commercial example of a software environment that supports the access of multivendor databases, including some IRS databases. Such a front end is useful to combine retrieval engines without the need to put much effort into the development of interfaces for the retrieval engines.

 

• Full integration approach. An IRS and a DBMS are merged into one hybrid database management system and extended with MM database management facilities. The MDBMS BASISplus from Information Dimensions Inc. (1990), little known outside the text retrieval world, is an example of this approach.  

It is important to stress that the extended DBMS approach is most often followed by suppliers, in general, therefore their products are the most mature.

Figure 8. Data flow diagram of the retrieval engine at the heart of an MRS.

2.4.3. MDBMS facilities in support of an MRS client application

The MDBMS facilities that support database related functions at the heart of an MRS are discussed in this section. In figure 8 a graphic overview is given of database related functions supporting an MRS client application, a database administrator and communication with external ISs.

Data Modelling Facility

The Data Modelling Facility (DMF) supports the database administrator in data modelling: updating both the data definition database, and the index and MM databases. The modelling of MM data is as yet, in its infancy. Therefore the data modelling capabilities of a retrieval engine selected for an MRS for M&S need special attention.

An advanced DMF is one of the most distinguishing features of DBMSs (ISO/IEC, 1991a). The DMF is a facility that provides for the execution of statements specified in a data definition language (DDL) and a data manipulation language (DML). A major strength of the DMF of DBMSs is the capability to define data integrity constraints (attribute, entity, referential, and database integrity). In many cases the DMF will support Codd's (1970) relational model. IRSs do not offer such an advanced DMF. Usually data modelling in IRSs is restricted to classification of objects. This means that some attributes are used for identification codes and keywords describing, for instance, an X-ray in a medical imaging system or a video in a video catalogue. An alternative for, or an addition to, a relational DMF is an object oriented DMF (Weigand, 1991; Kikkers, 1992). An object oriented DMF is sometimes fit for modelling complex MM objects, which is definitely not the case for conventional DBMSs and IRSs. Today, relational MDBMSs offer special data types for large objects containing MM data: an image data type, a document or text data type, and a BLOB (Binary Large OBject) data type.

Many DBMSs offer SQL (ISO/IEC, 1989b) as a standard database language that determines, among others, a DMF for relational structured data. SQL is non-procedural, meaning that statements do not need to be processed in a fixed order. It is important to note that SQL is unfit for the definition and manipulation of free text, graphics, image, audio and video. Therefore, current MDBMSs sometimes offer extensions of SQL or SQL-like database languages. The minimum extension needed includes functions for defining and manipulating BLOBs containing MM data.

Search facilities

MM search functions need to be offered to users, for efficient and effective retrieval by an MRS. Such search functions often rely on the search facilities of an MDBMS. The limitations of DBMS search facilities and IRS search facilities, and the MM extensions needed and offered by MDBMSs, are discussed below. To select or judge an MDBMS as a retrieval engine for an MRS it is important to have insight into the search facilities supported. These need to match the search facilities needed.

Within DBMSs, SQL is used as query language, that is offered directly to the user, or via a Query By Example screen. As a query language, SQL can be called an exact query language, since one can predict the results of a query on a database, assuming that the database is not corrupt. It is important to note that SQL is not able to handle the retrieval of free text, graphics, images, audio and video. It is necessary for MM retrieval, to extend a query language by the possibility to retrieve MM objects.

When text documents are stored in the database, and there is a need to retrieve these documents effectively it is worthwhile to consider IRS search facilities: inexact query mechanisms, incremental searching using set manipulation, ranking and clustering, and search profiles.

Inexact query mechanisms of IRSs, discussed extensively by Salton (1989), tackle the text retrieval problem in static text databases. An inexact query language offers the possibility to truncate search terms, to mask characters to overcome for instance spelling variations, and the use of special search operators like Adjacency (i.e., search terms are next to each other) and Proximity with its various implementations (Keen, 1992).

It is a major text retrieval problem that a result set containing references to all relevant (100 % recall), and no irrelevant (100% precision) texts is definitely not within reach of current inexact query languages. In their classic experiment, Blair & Maron (1985; 1990) described a situation with 350.000 full text indexed pages, where recall and precision for queries were typically 20% and 79% respectively, and values over 50%/50% were absent.

An incremental search strategy can be followed by a user to by-pass this text retrieval problem. A set manipulation facility, linked to the inexact query language, is provided by some IRSs for this reason. Set manipulation is used as follows. After a query a result set is produced containing zero or more members (i.e., found documents). One or more of such result sets can be used as input for new queries. In this way users can navigate through a database by combining, restricting or extending their result sets until their final result set satisfies them.

Another approach to tackle the text retrieval problem is to improve the recall and precision percentages using thesauri. Thesauri can be used to enhance user queries, but can also be used for field validation. A thesaurus contains a controlled list of index terms, using this list of index terms an attempt is made to overcome language problems such as spelling variations, use of punctuation marks, use of homonyms and synonyms, use of identifiers or popular names instead of scientific or official names, etc. (Aitchison & Gilchrist, 1987). Two international standards, ISO 2788 for monolingual and ISO 5964 for multilingual thesauri, specify the features a thesaurus should offer for building a semantic network of relations between terms. The ISO standards also describe the permitted types of relations.

Still another approach to by-pass the text retrieval problem is ranking. With ranking, a statistical probability of relevance is used to assign a rank to a certain document with respect to a given query. Retrieved documents are presented to the user in order of relevance.

In the case of dynamic document flows and users with a stable and well-defined information need search profiles can be created, specifying a field of interest. IRSs that support search profiles can present lists of new documents automatically to users corresponding to their search profile. The definition of a search profile is, however, not without problems. Foltz & Dumais (1992), testing their information filtering method, observed that documents were rated as relevant that did not share any word with the search profile!

Ideally, an MDBMS would allow for pictorial retrieval, for example, when searching for videos with fragments about a certain service or product, however, the problem to retrieve images and pictorial information effectively has definitely not been solved. Retrieval of pictorial information is even more difficult than retrieval of textual information (Cawkell, 1993). Automatic pictorial indexing, based on pattern recognition techniques, of pictures is in most cases still a research issue (Bordogna et al., 1990). Manual pictorial indexing in the form of assignment of content identifiers to a picture has the same limitations as assigning content identifiers to documents: they do not always match the unforeseen search terms of users.

Update facility

An MRS often contains a module for updating the MM objects in the MM database. Such a module must meet the need of creating and updating MM objects using MM editors, or by making use of the limited editing facilities offered by an MDBMS. If the editing of MM objects is finished, the MRS client application formulates an update statement in the database language and sends it, with the MM object, to the transaction manager that handles the transaction and performs the specified validation checks.

During update, it may be necessary to access information coding functions, for a more efficient storage of MM objects.

Presentation Facility

Presentation of MM objects to the user by screen, or by other means, is an essential feature of most MRS. An MRS client application sends a presentation request to the presentation facility of an MDBMS. The request includes the references to one or more MM database objects that are going to be presented. The presentation facility presents the MM object(s) via the MRS client application, according to the definitions of the related external model, to the user.

An MRS needs the support of a high resolution presentation facility, and possibilities to ease exchange of MM objects via a presentation layer. Traditional DBMSs offer only character oriented presentation mechanisms. IRSs offer, in addition, facilities to present a document as image or as word processor document with mark-up. Compared to traditional DBMSs and IRSs, the presentation of MM information by MDBMSs becomes more complicated because of the addition of presentational aspects such as colour, location in space and time (synchronisation), loudness, etc. (ISO/IEC, 1991b). If MM objects are stored in a coded format (e.g., MPEG) it is necessary for the presentation facility to have access to a decoding function, a presenter, to present the MM object in its original form.

Exchange Facility

It is necessary to standardise the ways MM data objects are organised and exchanged for an unhampered exchange and reuse of information in the form of file transfer (ISO/IEC, 1991a) between different ISs. Data objects must be coded in a way that both systems can interpret it. This can be achieved by using a common exchange format into which the exported data and database schema are converted. The importing system converts the exchange format back to its internal representation. Exchange of MM data objects between MDBMSs is still a major problem.

In the case of the exchange of documents only a few DBMSs and IRSs support, to a limited extend, de jure document (exchange) standards, like ODA and SGML. Already more support can be found of de facto document standards like MS Word and WordPerfect. Attention should be paid to hypermedia extensions for ODA (HyperODA) and SGML (HyTime) (Newcomb et al., 1991) for MM and hypermedia purposes.

Database Administration Facilities

Database administration facilities are those facilities which support a DBA (Database Administrator) in securing, tuning and organising one or more databases as part of one or more ISs. Some of these facilities may be called by the MRS client application from within a management module.

With DBA facilities, the facilities that support transaction management, recovery (ISO/IEC, 1991a), authorisation management and access control (ISO/IEC, 1991a), thesaurus management, distribution management (ISO/IEC, 1991a), and configuration management are meant.

A problem with MDBMSs is that the logfiles 'explode' when logging transactions on MM records. Compression of MM data or omission of video data solves or reduces this problem.

2.4.4. Conclusion

In the foregoing sections the most important MDBMS facilities used by MRS client applications are discussed. The need for MDBMS facilities in a certain MM database system need to be matched by the facilities offered by MDBMSs on the market. It should be realised that this match, taking current MDBMSs, is often far from perfect. To analyse this match between facilities needed and facilities offered, a good insight into MDBMS facilities is necessary. Therefore, such MDBMS facilities should be part of the framework.

Figure 9. Summary of characteristics of MRS for M&S at the subsystem level.  

To summarise, MDBMS (retrieval engine) characteristics of MRS for M&S can be described in terms of:

• the type of MDBMS, this is related to the integrational approach to handle multiple information types;

• the MDBMS facilities offered, like the DMF, search facilities, update facility, exchange facility, presentation facility, and DBA facilities.

With regard to the management of MM databases, an MDBMS based on the extended DBMS seems most appropriate. With regard to the management of MM document bases, an MDBMS based on the extended IRS approach seems most appropriate. With regard to de jure standardisation, we can note that it is important to consider support of de jure standards if reuse of information or compression of MM data is an important issue.

2.5. Summary

M&S business characteristics, MS characteristics, and retrieval engine (MDBMS) characteristics are discussed in this chapter. It is argued that these characteristics are useful for the framework for characterising MRSs for M&S in the next chapter.

The main characteristics at the business level (M&S), system level (MS), and retrieval subsystem level (retrieval engine) are summarised in figure 10.

  Figure 10. Summary of framework.      

© 1995-2002 Martijn Hoogeveen