It is impossible to organize a profitable business without specifics. So, when selling goods, the manager must know exactly how much was sold today, yesterday, during the last month, and how much less or more, if we compare the available data with the figures of the previous year.
Proper business management involves receiving answers to questions about the dynamics of costs, the amount of profit, etc. Such information is important for the leadership of any company. To obtain it, you need to implement the Business Intelligence system, or BI. This term refers to a combination of a variety of software products and applications specially designed to process and review the primary data of the company.
What is business intelligence?
Business Intelligence (BI) is a concept that has been used for a relatively long time. However, in Russia this term is used little, due to the lack of an adequate translation. So what is business intelligence?
If we consider the interpretation of the word "intelligence" in the Russian language, then it is understood only in one sense and means the mental ability of a person. However, the translation of the term Business Intelligence, which sounds like “data mining,” is not entirely correct. Indeed, without the use of intelligence, this work is impossible to carry out.
The ambiguity of this term is also caused by the polysemy of the word intelligence, which came to us from the English language. There it means:
- willingness to understand;
- ability to recognize;
- knowledge acquired or transferred through experience, research or training;
- state or actions in the process of cognition;
- intelligence or intelligence.
Due to such a wide variety of translation options, the original name of this term in English is most often used or the concept of “business intelligence” is used.
A bit of history
Business Intelligence - what is it? For the first time, the world learned about this phenomenon in the late 1980s. This concept was coined by analysts at Gartner. It was used to denote a user process, which included the stages of access to data and their research, subsequent analysis, as well as developing understanding and intuition, leading to informal and improved decision making.
This concept was somewhat refined in 1996. Then they started talking about Business Intelligence, which was nothing more than a set of tools for analyzing the data needed to build queries and reports. The final result of the work done with the help of such technologies is necessary to isolate significant information from a huge data stream. To date, the entire specified set of tools is included in the category that is called “business intelligence”. We know her as Business Intelligence.
Business analysis
What is meant by this concept? Business analysis is a thoughtful process that allows specialists to turn incoming data into certain information necessary to increase the efficiency of the enterprise and increase its competitiveness. Such work is based on the study of set commercial goals and finding ways to eliminate the problems that arise when they are achieved.
Business analytics is carried out according to the principles of business analysis and consists of several interconnected processes. These include:
- data mining - data mining;
- online analytical processing - real-time analysis;
- guerying - obtaining information using special databases;
- reporting - reporting.
Business analysis is used by companies to make informed decisions, reduce costs and search for new business prospects. BI technologies are a broader concept than traditional corporate reporting. Their level is much higher in comparison with the usual set of tools used to obtain data on the operation of the enterprise. That is why business intelligence is widely used by IT directors to identify inefficient processes that are fully ripe for restructuring.
The principle of building BI-systems
What is Business Intelligence? At its core, such systems are advanced analytical software necessary for reporting and conducting business analysis. Such software is able to use the data available in various sources of information to provide them in a section and form convenient for the manager. BI-system allows you to get a senior manager access to the most complete and truthful information regarding the situation in the company. A feature of the received reports is the ability to select their type and volume.
Benefits
Modern Business Intelligence systems are multifunctional. Thanks to this, in many large companies, they have already begun to gradually supplant other methods used to obtain reporting. The main advantages of a BI system are its capabilities:
- Connections to any databases containing data.
- Reporting of various structure, complexity, layout and appearance with the highest speed.
- Transparent work with data.
- Providing a link between information obtained from different sources.
- Saving data in any format that will be convenient for the user.
- Flexible and intuitive settings of access rights for a specialist in the system.
The business process management system enables the manager to receive information himself and not to depend on his assistants or the IT department in this matter.
In addition, when using such software, an excellent opportunity appears to reinforce the fidelity of the decisions made with exact numbers, not words. In the West, many network corporations that have long been using Business Intelligence have already appreciated these advantages. Examples of such companies are world-famous Yahoo, Amazon, WallMart and many others.
All these corporations allocate large financial sums for conducting business intelligence. And this money invested in Business Intelligence technologies brings them invaluable benefits.
Principles of the considered systems
The benefits brought by professional systems designed to make the most effective business decisions are based on the following:
- Visibility. The interface of any software designed for business analysis should reflect the main performance indicators of the company. Thanks to such visibility, the leader is given the opportunity to quickly assess the state of affairs for adoption, and if necessary, to make decisions to rectify the situation.
- Customization. Each user has the ability to customize the interface and function keys so that they are convenient for him.
- Layering. In each data set provided by the BI system, there should be several layers (sections). This will provide information in the detail that is required at a particular level.
- Interactivity. Users need to be able to collect information in several areas and from all sources simultaneously. For this, the system provides the function of setting up alerts for one or another key parameter.
- Multithreading and access control. BI-system needs to ensure the work of a large number of users with the possibility of installing for each of them a different access level.
The Business Intelligence principles listed above are supported by all leading BI applications.
Integration capability
What is the use of a business analysis system? Its capabilities can be grouped into three areas, the first of which is the integration of Business Intelligence. In this direction, the following criteria apply:
- Infrastructure. These are Business Intelligence (BI) tools that need to be implemented in a single key. For this, common metadata, a single object, as well as an end-to-end model of administration, security, and portal integration are used. In addition, the system tools have a common engine for executing queries.
- Development. For the BI platform to work effectively, it needs to provide users and developers with a set of special tools to create specific applications. These products must be able to integrate with each other. Also, applications for BI systems need to be integrated into the chain of end-to-end business processes, including third-party business applications that are implemented from the outside. At the same time, even some of these tools should be created in such a way as to be accessible at an intuitive level for users who lack programming skills. A graphical interface is also desirable. In addition, it is necessary that the development environment supports web services that solve the tasks of management, administration, information delivery, compliance with regulations and work schedules.
- Metadata management. This criterion is one of the most important. All BI system tools should be held together not only by the metadata model, but also have unified means for obtaining, searching, storing, and also reusing with the ability to publish information. Such objects include sets and arrays, hierarchies, elements, and reporting metrics.
- Interaction. To make effective business decisions, the BI system should include tools that involve the exchange of not only the information itself, but also the opinions of specialists regarding the data received. All this can be realized through conferences and discussion forums. In addition, in BI applications, it is possible to assign an individual task to users. Tracking its implementation is also envisaged. Sometimes, in order to implement these tasks, it is necessary to install separate applications that are not originally included in the business intelligence system and are independent.
Provision of information
This is the second direction of Business Intelligence, which includes the following system features:
- Reporting Business analysis is not possible without interactive and formatted reporting. At the same time, the BI system should have developed mechanisms to update and disseminate the information received. Its effective work is impossible without the support of various report styles.
- Information (control) panels. This feature of the business intelligence system is one of the types that are used for reporting. In a separate line, information panels are related to their important and exceptional ability to provide data not only in a visual, but also in an intuitive way. For this, various indicators, scales, indicators, etc. are used. Such control panels provide users with the ability to monitor the current status of key processes and indicators, comparing them with their planned values. At the same time, the manager owns operational information, and the business applications used make it available in real time.
- Performing arbitrary queries. This feature of the BI-system allows the user to independently, without involving IT specialists, create, and after that, execute atypical, unique requests. In order to implement such capabilities when developing a BI platform, a semantic layer is included in it. It allows you to find the information you need and extract it from the provided sources. In addition, to provide such an opportunity, there are tools in the business intelligence system that audit requests, which allows you to verify the correctness of the actions.
- Integration with applications included in Microsoft Office. Sometimes the BI platform is used as an intermediate tool when performing analytical tasks, while observing the safety rules and data correctness. In this case, the client part of the business intelligence system is Microsoft Office products. In particular, it is Excel. In these cases, the BI vendor should provide full integration with Microsoft Office. This includes support for pivot tables, form, document formats, and mechanisms designed to provide the system with data. The advanced integration option provides for the possibility of blocking some cells, as well as moving back to the database of those changes that have been made.
- Search for information. This feature of the BI-system is necessary so that users can easily navigate and study data thanks to the search interface.
- Mobile features. Such a functional unit combines tools that allow you to deliver content and dashboard reports to tablets and smartphones.
Data analysis
The following area of Business Intelligence provides such opportunities:
- Operational analytical data processing (OnLine Analytical Processing, OLAP). Such support allows you to speed up the process of processing requests, as well as performing calculations. This provides data analysis based on the necessary section of information.
- Interactive visualization. This feature is the most visual representation of the data. In this case, interactive images, graphs and diagrams are used.
- Predictive modeling. A similar tool of the business analytics system is designed to help company leaders classify the data obtained, form their own quantitative and nominal scales, and also use the developed mathematical apparatus for analysis.
- Scorecard. These technology tools allow you to control the progress of the implementation of strategic plans, as well as the achievement of key performance indicators.
- Perspective modeling, optimization and simulators. These tools of the business analysis system are necessary to support the decision made, provided that the correct variable value is selected when creating a model of random processes.
Implementation of analytical systems
The leaders of most large companies agree on the benefits of using Business Intelligence. Indeed, such systems are today considered one of the most promising areas of IT technology. Nevertheless, the implementation of such software is often complicated by technical and psychological barriers, as well as uncoordinated actions of managers and the lack of specific responsibilities for employees.
When deciding to implement a BI system in a company, it is important to understand that the success of a project will be largely determined by the attitude of employees towards innovation. This applies to all IT products. The skepticism towards them, as well as the fear of employees before the reduction, sometimes nullify all the efforts of management. An ideal situation will be only if the attitude to this system develops as an instrument that facilitates routine actions.
Prior to the introduction of the technology, it is recommended that employees take Business Intelligence courses. This will allow them to successfully cope with the work in the analytical program. In addition, you will need to conduct a thorough analysis of those business processes that occur in the company, as well as the principles that management should follow when making management decisions.
The choice of a specific business analytic system will largely depend on:
- objectives and goals of its implementation;
- requirements for data storage and the ability to handle them;
- latitude data integration functions;
- information visualization capabilities;
- required versatility or narrow specialization;
- software product prices.
Consideration of the above criteria allows the company management to make their choice from the huge variety of existing software created for business analytics.