How Organizations Benefit from Business Intelligence Solutions - Research Paper Example

BI Research Paper Introduction The past few years have seen an evolution of the entire business landscape. With increased challenges affecting most of the organizations today ranging from uncertainties and risks in investments to crisis of incomplete and inaccurate information, most organizations have taken a different path in dealing with such challenges that are a great threat to the achievement of the various organizational goals and objectives. Information is one of the greatest resources any organization can have and can also be one of its biggest weaknesses. That is why today most organizations have created different technological architecture not only to make the process of decision making flexible and effective but also to enhance the speed at which the managers make these decisions while at the same time providing adequate security to the information. This has all been achieved through business intelligence (Gurjar & Rathore, 2013). Business intelligence has been defined and redefined by various scholars over the last ten years. According to Ranjan (2009), it refers to the process of generating information that can be valued in terms of its currency and relevance. Therefore any business intelligence involves logical and different types of technologies and applications involved in collection and analysis of data that is used by businesses to make logical decisions that enables the organizations come up with new opportunities ((Gurjar & Rathore, 2013). IBM vs. Tableau A closer look at the IBM demo will automatically tell you that IBM is a prominent producer of dashboards in the market. From the visuals used by the IBM dashboard to the analytical capabilities shown proves that IBM dashboards are made from complex Business Intelligence applications and architectures and are capable of generating powerful and reliable information that can be very useful to any given organization. Capabilities demonstrated in the demo further shows that the IBM dashboard is made as more of an enterprise dashboard. The information it produces is vital to the future of the entire business. This is the kind of information important to the general management of the company. On the other hand, in the Tableau demo, Tableau online looks a bit simpler, less complicated applications and at the first glance of it, one feels that it is simple and easy to operate. The visuals displayed are also easy to read and manipulate and not forgetting the fact that Tableau online looks more attractive. These are the exact characteristics ordinary users would search for in the market. It is a similar dashboard to the IBM but different in the way it is handled. Tableau online dashboard therefore seems like a target to all the possible users of different kinds without caring where they are or where they work as long as they have data they feel needs to be analyzed. Also, from the demo, one first works on the data in a tableau desktop and then posts it on the tableau online. The Tableau online dashboard can also be used as a specific function dashboard or a specific unit dashboard. According to the tableau online demo, there is no training required on how to use the dashboard unlike IBM dashboard that looks really complicated and hard to operate making it look more of a management stuff. However, the IBM and Tableau dashboards have a lot in common too. First, the two dashboards work online for both companies and therefore needs a server to function appropriately and are capable of providing the users with important information that can be used to make fast, important and reliable decisions as well as adequate management information to control and monitor progress of the various business operations. Secondly, the two dashboards use similar methods of presentation of business Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or other metrics; trending charts, graphs, colored maps as well as dials and other visual elements. Thirdly, both the IBM and Tableau dashboards can be used in computers, tablets or even smart phones. Fourthly, the two companies generate the dashboards from data resulting from various business reports fed to the dashboard from different sources and the information to forecasting sales of a business in the market as well as in issues of decision making by the management. Lastly, a close look at the two dashboards will as well make you have the thought that the two companies had similar or almost similar goals when they designed the respective dashboards. Both companies aimed at making managers and businesses of the world more intelligent by enabling them generate business intelligent information just from a single screen. That is the underlying reason why the two companies developed such dashboards with different qualities, characteristics and capabilities. How organizations benefit from Business Intelligence solutions Through the collection and analysis of data by the various applications and techniques, Business intelligence has the capability of producing the most accurate information for any given organization or individual business which in turn enables the organization or the individual business make proper tactical and strategic decisions (Horakova & Skalska, 2013). Such decisions may be in relation to forecast on the future sales and future revenues expected or even the most productive target groups the business should concentrate on. By the help of the business intelligence applications, such information is also generated and conveyed to the management in a timely manner. How dashboards help the average user A dashboard is designed in a way that the most crucial information is displayed in a single screen. This enables the user to closely follow and monitor various operations with ease since no more information is required. A dashboard therefore makes it possible for the user to understand the information at a glance hence adequately making it possible to make timely decisions in relation to an operation. Role played by Business Intelligence in competitive advantage and organizational strategy Business intelligence is today a crucial tool of competitive advantage for almost every organizations and individual businesses. According to Muhammad et.al (2014), business intelligence has provided a lot of value to the finance sector and that different financial institution such as banks and insurance companies today depend highly on Business Intelligence. The aspect of efficient and effective gathering and analysis of information makes the company to proactively make decisions both tactical and strategic decisions. Timely and quality decisions are sources of competitive advantage for organizations. It is from Business Intelligence that a company is able to know its position in comparison to its competitors, its capabilities, its future trends in both market and revenues. This automatically means that if a firm aspires to be better than its competitors and leap better revenues in future, alterations of the organization’s strategies are unavoidable. Therefore, finding opportunities from its capabilities and implementation of adequate strategies is an absolute source of competitive advantage for any given firm. How “Big Data” and Business Intelligence work together Analysts believe that the big data does not necessarily destroy the Business Intelligence but rather builds it by making it valuable and useful to the business since the business will still need to look at its past (Bernard, 2012). The manager may also use a past data to perform a correlation analysis between markets of different product thus enabling a manager make a “mission-critical business decision “(Bernard, 2012). A case study of a company that implemented a BI solution Hess Corporation is one of the American oil producing entities. It is located in New York City. The company is involved in activities such as; exploration of the oil sites, production and refining of oil as well as oil transport. Before integrating a BI system, the company was faced by difficulties in determining the risk of its markets hence poor performance of its products in the market as well as low profit margins. However, Hess Corporation decided to utilize Business intelligence in maximizing its profits. With the help of the BI systems the company was able to collect data within and outside its premises and also relevant data in relation to natural calamities such as climatic and weather conditions as well as the data regarding world politics. Today, Hess Corporation use applications such as Geolog to collects seismic data and PDI Focal Point to analyze data on a dashboard regarding various sales trend and expected revenues. This has enabled Hess Corporation achieve operational efficiency by cutting down expenses of its different transactions and also the company is now able to forecast future sales and not forgetting the fact that BI has helped the corporation identify various untapped markets hence maximizing its profits. References Bernard, A. (2012). “How Big Data Brings BI, Predictive Analytics Together”. Retrieved from http://www.cio.com/article/2392075/big-data/how-big-data-brings-bi--predictive-analytics-together.html Gurjar, Y, S., & Rathore, V, S. (2013). Cloud Business Intelligence – Is What Business Need Today. International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering, 1(6), 2277-3878. Horakova, M., & Skalska, H. (2013). Business Intelligence and Implementation in a mall Enterprise. Journal of Systems Integration. Pp. 50-61. Muhammad, G., Ibrahim, J., Zeeshan, B., & Ahmad, W. (2014). Business Intelligence as a Knowledge Management Tool in Providing Financial Consultancy Services. American Journal of Information Systems, 2(2), 26-32. Ranjan, J. (2009). Business Intelligence: Concepts, Components, Techniques and Benefits. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology, 9(1), 60-70. Read More