Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing - Research Paper Example

Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing INTRODUCTION Organizations have mastered through internet as a high-tech communication system and tool, as well as with excellent basis. The internet has proven to be an excellent tool to improve connectivity between distributed businesses and offer a mobile workforce. However, a lot of businesses understand that using the internet to communicate business intelligence (BI) in about to concurrent style succeeds its earlier utilization as an information broadcasting and collaboration medium. On the other hand, in this information technology based era businesses that develop data warehouses and make use of business intelligence for decision-making eventually save money and gain high return on investment. Additionally, schemes vary from supply chain integration to satisfying government-mandated reporting requirements and standards reliant upon well-made data warehouse arrangement (TechRepublic, 2007) and (University of California, 2011). This paper presents a detailed discussion on business intelligence and data warehousing. This paper will discuss some of the latest trends of intelligent business systems application for business areas in order to improve business functionality. ROLE OF BI IN BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT The rapidly changing business environment has made business intelligence (BI) vital to a business’s success. In fact, business intelligence systems are used to turn business's raw data into effective and efficient information that is helpful to the management in recognizing significant business trends, examining customer performance, and formulating intelligent business decisions rapidly. Additionally, over the earlier few years, business intelligence systems have been utilized to recognize and deal with back office requirements like that competence and efficiency. At the present, businesses are more and more making use of BI to examine client behavior, recognize marketplace trends, and search for novel prospects (Sun Microsystems, Inc., 2005) and (Laudon & Laudon, 1999). In addition, business intelligence depends on data warehousing (a huge data storage or repository to support business's decision making), allowing cost-effective storage and management capability in the form of intelligent data warehouse solution. Moreover, in absence of an efficient data warehouse, businesses could not be able to pull out the data required for information analysis in time to ease practical decision-making. The capability to get information in real-time has turned out to be more and more vital in current years for the reason that decision-making cycle times have been radically minimized. Furthermore, ever-increasing competitive stress requires companies to formulate intelligent decisions based on their external company data as well as do it rapidly. In other words, just put the capacity to turn raw business data into practical information in an appropriate way can put in up to millions of dollars to a business’s bottom line (Sun Microsystems, Inc., 2005) and (Laudon & Laudon, 1999). GOOD INFORMATION IS NECESSARY FOR GOOD BUSINESS DECISIONS It is admitted fact that good business decisions are based on good information of business working and operational aspects. Additionally, a lot of businesses at the present understand the requirement for delivery of precise, reliable and timely information to managers, analysts, customers and other stakeholders. However a lot of them fail to convene these aims and objectives for a lot of causes like that numerous legacy reporting systems and difficult spreadsheets or a failure to correctly apply innovative reporting systems. In this scenario, the new business intelligence systems and tools facilitate the organizations to be competitive by changing information to intelligence for formulating improved business decisions and reacting to insight speedily in the course of their distinctive enterprise intelligence services. In addition, the new technology based data warehousing and business intelligence tools and services ensure accessibility of business data and information. Moreover, it formulates a clear way to gain competitive benefit and allows clients to considerably improve their services as well as bottom-line success (Bowett, 2011). GOOD DECISION-MAKING LEADS TO GOOD BUSINESS It is an admitted fact that good decision-making leads to good business. In current business arrangements the business consultation is looking for the views and knowledge of other people as well facilitates, as does the capability to disclose one was incorrect and alters one’s mind. Additionally, business managers are trained to formulate improved decisions. However, they require a helpful and friendly atmosphere where they would not be wrongly criticized for making wrong decisions as well as will get suitable support from other associates and seniors (Bowett, 2011). In addition, a lot of businesses know the importance of delivery of correct, reliable and timely data and information to managers, analysts, customers and other stakeholders. On the other hand, most of the organizations fail to convene these aims and objectives for a lot of causes like that numerous legacy reporting systems and complex spreadsheets or a malfunction to correctly establish new reporting systems and tools. In this situation the new technology based data warehousing solution can be very helpful to those businesses in transforming information to intelligence for formulating improved business decisions as well as responding to approaches rapidly in the course of unique enterprise intelligence services. In this scenario, the new technology based business intelligence solution makes sure the accessibility of business-critical data and information. It formulates a clear way to competitive benefit as well as permitting clients to considerably improve their services as well as bottom-line productivity (ZSL Inc., 2011). TRENDS OF BI AND DATA WAREHOUSING This section discusses some of the latest trends in the fields of business intelligence and data warehousing. In a lot of business areas and corporations main drivers that are formulating business intelligence and data warehousing solutions mission critical comprise: Quick boost in “information democracy” that is, business is placing business intelligence tools and data in the hands of large numbers and different kinds of clients not immediately an elite few. In this scenario, a lot of people are obtaining more information in more aspects on more devices. In addition, companies are making necessary to formulate extra efficient decisions, more regularly and more precisely in shorter time phases. In this scenario, the time frame between when a decision is formulated and when reaction is received (need a new decision) is becoming shorter and shorter. Thus, the capability to formulate intelligent business decisions rapidly is vital to remain competitive (Sun Microsystems, Inc., 2005). Additionally, the business data is being modified on a large scale. In this scenario, personalized data and information details like that digital domains, portals, suggestions and news feeds are ordinary and all of them need that data warehouses need be efficient to offer dissimilar views to dissimilar people. In addition, new legislation and quality regulations have made business intelligence and data warehouse mission critical. These regulatory requirements place larger demands on assessing and upholding business intelligence. Thus, the data have to be retained, captured and managed in a way that complies with laws and standards posed by governments and other bodies (Sun Microsystems, Inc., 2005). Moreover, the variety of data varies. In fact, businesses have to store and process data from several different sources (i.e. ERP or CRM systems) and in a multiplicity of data formats (i.e. images, text, video, voice, unstructured data, and more). Furthermore, since the business data is a precious asset so it requires high level security. In this scenario, businesses all through the world are searching for methods to minimize the risk connected with managing rising and disparate structures of data (Sun Microsystems, Inc., 2005). BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE TOOLS This section discusses some of the important business intelligence tools those are available nowadays and usable for the enhanced business and corporate decision making process. The main wide-ranging types of business intelligence systems and tools are: (Ante & McGregor, 2010) OLAP (online analytical processing system) Spreadsheets (such as MS Excel) Business performance management system Local information systems Digital dashboards system Process mining system Data mining system Decision engineering system Querying and reporting software: system and tools that pull-out, sort, review, and present selected data Apart from spreadsheets tools, these tools are placed for the sales as standalone tools, parts of ERP systems, components, or as parts of software targeted to a precise industry. In addition, the BI and decision support tools are frequently packaged into data warehouse applications (Ante & McGregor, 2010). BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SOFTWARE This section outlines some of important business intelligence tools that can be used and implemented for enhanced business intelligence and decision support: taken from (Business Intelligence ToolsBox, 2011) and (Olavsrud, 2010) No. Business Intelligence Tool Vendor 1. Oracle Enterprise BI Server Oracle 2. Business Objects Enterprise XI SAP 3. Microsoft BI tools (integrated BI offering*) Microsoft  4. SAS Enterprise BI Server SAS Institute 5. Microstrategy Microstrategy 6. IBM Cognos Series 10 IBM 7. QlikView QlikTech 8. Board Management IntelligenceToolkit Board International 9. BizzScore Suite EFM Software 10. WebFocus Information Builders 11. Oracle Hyperion System Oracle 12. SAP NetWeaver BI SAP 13. Actuate Actuate 14. Style Intelligence InetSoft 15. Pentaho BI suite (open source) Pentaho 16. Tableau Software Tableau Software BI: THE CORPORATE NEED All the data that is utilized by business intelligence systems comes from the business’s data warehouse that is particularly designed database to store and collect data from a variety of sources. In this scenario, BI analysts apply data mining techniques and tools, and this process of assessing and analyzing the data in the data warehouse to determine hidden patterns and associations, through specialized BI tools (such as Oracle BI, Microsoft BI and Business Objects BI) is known as data mining (Jason, 2008). In addition, a lot of businesses make use of BI plans in an attempt to support the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) accomplishment measurement program. In this scenario, customary measurements are exclusively financial-based. On the other hand, balanced scorecard technique assesses both the financial lagging aspects and a multiplicity of future performance indicators those are known as foremost measures. Additionally, these new decision support facilities using business intelligence systems and data warehouses work so effectively for the reason that it not simply offers a way for analyzing financial indicators, it as well offers a way to enumerate an organisation's other value drivers comprising its learning as well as development viewpoint, business procedure viewpoints and its customers’ viewpoint (Jason, 2008). CONCLUSION In this information technology based era businesses that develop data warehouses and make use of business intelligence for decision-making eventually save money and gain high return on investment. The rapidly changing business environment has made business intelligence (BI) vital to a business’s success. In fact, business intelligence systems are used to turn business's raw data into effective and efficient information that is helpful to the management in recognizing significant business trends, examining customer performance, and formulating intelligent business decisions rapidly. Business intelligence depends on data warehousing (a huge data storage or repository to support business's decision making), allowing cost-effective storage and management capability in the form of intelligent data warehouse solution. Moreover, in absence of an efficient data warehouse, businesses could not be able to pull out the data required for information analysis in time to ease practical decision-making. This paper has analyzed the possible influence of new technology based solutions on the business. The research has shown that latest tools and techniques of business intelligence and data warehousing have brought excellent opportunities for businesses to make decision and support corporate working areas. This paper has discussed the influence of BI and DWH solution on business areas and their possible prospects. REFERENCES Ante, S. E., & McGregor, J. (2010). Giving The Boss The Big Picture . Retrieved September 12, 2011, from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_07/b3971083.htm Bowett, R. (2011). organisation - decision-making in business. Retrieved September 12, 2011, from http://tutor2u.net/business/organisation/decisionmaking.htm Business Intelligence ToolsBox. (2011). List of Business Intelligence (BI) tools. Retrieved September 13, 2011, from http://www.businessintelligencetoolbox.com/list-of-bi-tools/ Jason. (2008, January 02). The benefits of Business Intelligence . Retrieved September 14, 2011, from http://jasonmcintyre.blogspot.com/2008/01/benefits-of-business-intelligence.html Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (1999). Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall . Olavsrud, T. (2010, May 05). Ten Leading Business Intelligence Software Solutions. Retrieved September 13, 2011, from http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/3880336/Ten-Leading-Business-Intelligence-Software-Solutions.htm Sun Microsystems, Inc. (2005, March). Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing (BIDW). Retrieved September 11, 2011, from http://www.inst-informatica.pt/servicos/informacao-e-documentacao/biblioteca-digital/areas-aplicacionais/business-intelligence-data-warehousing/business-intelligence-and-data-warehousing-bidw TechRepublic. (2007). Data warehousing and business intelligence. Retrieved September 10, 2011, from http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/html/itp/IBM_Data_Warehousing_and_Business_Intelligence.pdf University of California. (2011). Business Intelligence & Data Warehousing. Retrieved September 11, 2011, from http://unex.uci.edu/certificates/it/data_warehousing/ ZSL Inc. (2011). Enterprise Intelligence Services. Retrieved September 12, 2011, from http://www.zslinc.com/business_intelligence_data_warehousing.htm Read More