Today’s company managers and other decision-makers are already familiar with business intelligence systems. Business intelligence (or sometimes referred to as BI) is the process where software applications are used to compile and analyze business data for improved decision-making and cutting costs. The data delivered in the past were in the dashboards, printed reports, and others. Later, it was deemed necessary to include data warehousing, visualization, and analytical evaluation. Soon, it was clear to everyone that data requirements of the new BI were different from those of the old system. Older BI techniques There had been companies who paid for expensive BI solutions in the past which, unfortunately, were not designed for business end users. The old system refers to the past for understanding how the business had acted and analyzes what will improve in its future iteration. The old system in business intelligence is dependent on the stored data in business records in data warehouses and marts. Additional data are supplied from groups and departments within the company. There were also other outside vendors and partners in the group. However, timing was not synchronized with the old analysis and the current processes. Old business intelligence groups were high-level but typically small. Usually, they are composed largely of business analysts and financial professionals together with the senior managers and executives of the company. Decisions coming from the old BI analysis were not critical vis-à-vis the company’s daily operations. New techniques In the new context of business intelligence systems, the company’s day-to-day operations are in focus. The new focal point is widely used by the whole management personnel who are in charge of decisions that drive the present business performances of their respective units. This difference in emphasis makes for wider and more implications of what type and how much data a business application needs. This also makes clear what kinds of decisions are made by the users, and how the business applies those decisions. One other important consideration is the number and type of users that the business intelligence must serve. The other implications are how the BI system presents the data and how they are analyzed. Real-time presentation and analysis The new system collates the data as they happen, immediately reports on it, and analyze at once. There may be some historical data involved but it puts more premium on current transactional information available. It is not surprising that the system needs real-time access to date and does the updates on the stored ones many times during the day. This requires in turn many more types of data than the longer-termed analysis of the old system. Nowadays, more are using the new methods compared to the old style. In addition, the users are not that high up in the managerial or senior executive level. This new method has to adapt to the bigger size of the new user demand. This may need additional hardware and other resources in networking plus many other types of software to sustain the high usage count. Today’s business intelligence systems are evolving to meet the ever-growing demands of the industry.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorAn overview of business intelligence solutions. Archives
July 2017
Categories |