Business Intelligence (also referred to as BI) is business. during a recent report analyst, Datamonitor predicts business intelligence spend by retail banking in North America, Europe, the center East and Asia-Pacific, will increase around 60.7%, from $5.6 billion in 2006 to $9 billion by 2012.
So what’s business intelligence, and why would you even need it?
As is typical within the IT industry ‘Business Intelligence’ is means something slightly different to everyone. So I even have come up with my very own definition of BI. Here it is:
“Business Intelligence may be a system which enables organizations to gather, analyze, and present business information to support business decisions.”
Business Intelligence may be a system …
BI isn’t a set of diverse tools you set together and ‘hope for the best’. If you would like to urge good results you would like to plan from the beginning . do not be dazzled by the impressive offerings of the software giants. Have a transparent picture from the beginning of what you would like to urge from BI, and the way you propose to urge there, and your chances of getting real value from Business Intelligence multiply greatly.
One thing that differentiates BI systems from traditional systems like inventory, distribution, and finance systems is flexibility – the power to feature measures and outputs as your organization and its use of BI develop. But this flexibility doesn’t excuse you from the design stages – actually, it increases the necessity for planning.
Unlike many traditional computer systems, one BI system can provide value to all or any departments within your organization, but like any system, it’s important to not expect delivery on everything at an equivalent time. Build steadily, working down your priority list.
… which enables organizations to gather …
The first question you would possibly ask is “why do I even have to gather the information I have already got in my database”? the solution is, you almost certainly do not have it already. you would possibly have a number of the knowledge you would like, and even then it’s probably not within the exact form you would like it. Much of the opposite information you would like is perhaps on spreadsheets on various peoples’ desks, or doesn’t exist in the least and has got to be collected.
Even if you’ve got all the knowledge you would like already (which is unlikely) it’s an honest idea for the BI system to store it elsewhere. Often you would like to feature history to your BI database, which can not be kept in your existing transactional systems.
The most popular thanks to collect the info is during a specially-designed data warehouse. It takes time and skill to develop an honest data warehouse, but in most cases, it’s vital to an efficient BI implementation. an honest data warehouse needn’t be an enormous, complex beast – the simpler the planning, the lower the value, and therefore the more chance of success.
… analyze…
Generally speaking, data is best suited to BI reporting when it’s
- summarised, and
- organized in hierarchies
. In large organizations with large amounts of knowledge, this number-crunching process can require many calculations and is usually administered overnight on a day today . Calculations, sometimes between quite diversely held data elements, allow you to make specific ‘key performance indicators’ (KPIs) like Profit per Customer and Revenue per Employee.
Data held in multidimensional structures referred to as cubes contain this hierarchical, summarised information which allows managers to analyze KPIs at any level of the organization – giving them the power to ascertain, for instance, Revenue per Employee at National, Regional and Area levels, by month or summarised at the year level.
… Present business information …
The presentation of data may be a key issue and will be considered with the character of the info and also the recipient in mind. Presentation methods in BI are constantly evolving and include:
- Online and printed reports and queries
- Graphs
- Multidimensional cubes
- Dashboards
- Scorecards
Mostly delivery is online but cubes can – counting on the software package wont to create them – be taken offline and analyzed on a non-networked laptop, for instance. Recent features like email alerts are often vitally important where metrics change rapidly and quick action must be taken to remedy them.
…to support business decisions.
The most common reason for collecting, analyzing, and presenting KPIs and metrics is to watch and improve the performance of your organization. In economic terms, you would like to urge more from your BI system than you set in (ie the advantages should outweigh the costs). If this is often not the case you’ll usually improve the balance by making more use of it, which frequently means adding more KPIs and users.
That’s It – Summary
Business Intelligence systems maximize data use by collating the info into useful metrics and KPIs and presenting them effectively. How effective your Business Intelligence system becomes is said to how well it had been planned and implemented. A well-implemented BI system can cut costs, improve productivity, and make an organization more competitive. an efficient BI strategy is significant to success.
