Business analytics - Research Paper Example

Business Analytics is one of the most prominent and critical field as Information Technology emerges in the 21st century. BI is pivotal in many organizations because it allows respective stakeholders to view and analyze data. Before the advent of BI, information about customers and business were overwhelming. With BI, stakeholders can truly take this raw information and convert into data that can assist them in making real-time decisions. The challenge in many organizations is the fact that majority of decisions are made based on estimated guesses. One of the best elements of BI is the fact that it reduces any ‘guesswork’. Moreover, it allows the organization to understand customer behavior in a much meaning ful way. Another huge aspect of BI is the collaboration aspect as it allows users to interact and use this data. Imagine an organization in which the marketing department requires key reports from the technology department. Clearly, the issue of latency can be a factor that can delay essential decision making. With the boom of e-commerce, this has become even more pivotal. For many decades, companies have established itself as one of the most premiere companies internationally. Business Analytics (2014) In order to harness the growth of customers worldwide, McDonald’s has created data warehousing that has allowed the company to understand the customers, track inventory, and monitor financials. All of these components are integrated in one dashboard that has harnessed BI. A centralized information from all the sources (e.g. point-of-sale (POS) system, equipment monitoring, etc) where all sorts of information, real-time feeds and legacy information, can be monitored and analyzed in most efficient and precise way via data warehousing. Oracle ERP system, which can handle most day-to-day business functions, would serve as the hub. POS and other devices use business Analytics software to gather sales information and marketing data, which is then transferred to an Oracle database for analysis. would help organizations have robust information of their business processes and assist them monitoring the progress of their business in the terms of sales, revenues, inventory management, staff allocation, location of the business in terms of which is profitable or unprofitable, and also gives them the head start to mitigate any risk. The main objective of using Oracle software with other systems is to perform integration among different systems so everything is centralized thus the information. Liebowitz (2006) states that a BI approach would also help them to perform product management that is to monitor the quality of product and tools that are used for business, this all can be achieved by Simple Network Management Technology (SNMP) which monitors every essential piece of equipment in each location “with the addition of simple electronic monitoring devices, a network connection, and an SNMP management information base (a piece of software that interprets the data from the device for the monitoring system), that "intelligent device". The beauty of their BI planning is the availability of meaningful and informative ‘Dashboard’ for the decision makers. Moreover, Liebowitz (2006) states that executives would be able to analyze data from all over the world from their Web browser—it would give them a dashboard for driving business at a high-level. Along with current and real time data, it also provides historical data which is essential in building KPI and performance metrics thus helps decision makers to focus on their priority data that is critical for operation. Also this approach allows them to have more robust and informative automated online reporting and meaningful dashboard which allows company’s managers to focus on analyzing data instead of spending time on creating reports. The analytics approach also help them to perform product management that is to monitor the quality of product and tools that are used for business, this all can be achieved by Simple Network Management Technology (SNMP) which monitors every essential piece of equipment in each location “with the addition of simple electronic monitoring devices, a network connection, and an SNMP management information base (a piece of software that interprets the data from the device for the monitoring system), that "intelligent device" can be nearly anything—including a freezer, a fryer, or a soda dispenser” (Gallagher, July 2nd 2003). Companies like IBM use this approach to understand and provide customer solutions to vendor in which every equipment in the kitchen and store remotely or from onsite to maintain the productivity, quality, and consistency of their products. The beauty of their Business anlaystics planning is the availability of meaningful and informative ‘Dashboard’ for the decision makers. McDonalds plan is to make things convenient for executives and managers by providing flexibility to see business information at any time of day from anywhere such as how sales of any product at any store is proceeding, “this would give McDonalds executives a complete, instant picture of the companys operations around the world, and, in theory, the ability to act quickly when necessary to adjust the deployment of promotions and supplies to meet demand. Executives would be able to analyze data from all over the world from their Web browser—it would give them a dashboard for driving McDonalds business” (Gallagher, July 2nd 2003). Data warehouses solution assists IBM with convenient and cost-effective solution, and also provide central repository for data that comes from all branches of business and from other sources(POS or from malfunctioning equipment), which helps in managing and analyzing data in manageable way. Also the online analytical processing (OLAP) capability helps McDonalds in driving logical strategy which is based on precise analysis. Apart from analysis, their approach also assists in consolidating data in meaningful format which allows managing and allocating information more effectively across all the areas of business thus helps in making more informed decisions. Along with current and real time data, it also provides historical data which is essential in building KPI and performance metrics thus helps decision makers to focus on their priority data that is critical for operation. Also this approach allows them to have more robust and informative automated online reporting and meaningful dashboard which allows company’s managers to focus on analyzing data instead of spending time on creating reports. One of the best advents of analytics is exemplified by SALESFORCE, a system that have revolutionized e-commerce in many ways. As a CRM systems, Salesforce allows organizations to embed different models within the same physical infrastructure and can be embedded in many different models of cloud.In the PaaS model, cloud providers deliver a computing platform typically including operating system and programming language. MVC framework is a prime example of this service. Moreover, Infrastructure as Service or (IaaS) or IaaS clouds often offer additional resources such as virtual machines, storage capacity, security and end-to-end logical network model. Lastly, Software as Service (SaaS) can be beneficial because of a software deployment where an application is hosted as a service. A great example of this is Salesforce 2.0 in the e-commerce realm. Users can access information publicly, but payment information per user is not shared publicly. References Assessing The Business Process In Mcdonalds Business Essay. (n.d.). Assessing The Business Process In Mcdonalds Business Essay. Retrieved May 14, 2014, from http://www.ukessays.com/essays/business/assessing-the-business-process-in-mcdonalds-business-essay.php Business Analytics | BI | BusinessAnalytics.com. (n.d.). Business Analytics. Retrieved May 14, 2014, from http://businessAnalytics.com/ Communications LDM. (n.d.). Communications LDM. Retrieved May 14, 2014, from http://www.teradata.com/logical-data-models/communications/ Liebowitz, J. (2006). Strategic Analytics: business Analytics, competitive Analytics, and knowledge management. Boca Raton, FL: Auerbach Publications. McDonalds Credits Business Analytics for Recent Growth. (n.d.). CRM Magazine. Retrieved May 14, 2014, from http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/CRM-News/Daily-News/McDonalds-Credits-Business-Analytics-for-Recent-Growth-43484.aspx, Read More