Business Intelligence in Action
Is Business Intelligence (BI) just a fad or something that can really help a business grow? Someone who is not familiar with BI technology will treat BI as simple reporting tool that only facilitates the work to be done. The way to analyze the business using electronic spreadsheets, manual computations and other forms of processing information, without the aid of advanced BI technology tools, may limit greater possibilities to improve the business.
Facilitation of work or making a reporting job easier is not all there is in BI. BI provides a complete, accurate, simple, automated, on-time and visible analysis of company data and information that serve as a competent basis for decision making. The “rule of thumb” is, as long as the data exist, any type of analysis and desired report output can be done.
Different BI technology tools offer various methods in implementing a BI project. The length of time in doing so also differs depending on the implementation methodology that a BI technology provider adopts in a project. In common practice, BI implementation starts with project definition or understanding the business requirement. After identifying the requirement details, processes, procedures, present infrastructure, project roles, scope of work, and projected result, the BI tool comes to play, incorporating the business information within the BI technology to address the business requirement. This is where the project development takes place. Within the project development, there are different types of procedures employed on how to develop the project, depending on the BI tool and methodology utilized. There may also be unit testing within the development process to see to it that the project meets the desired objective, until the final user acceptance test. Once accepted, the completed project output is ready to be rolled out in production. After which, support and maintenance will be provided to make sure that the BI works properly.
BI can be used in all areas of business such as Sales, Inventory, Finance, Operations, Marketing, Human Resources, and Customer Service among others. BI brings a higher level of understanding the business to improve performance, monitor and manage progress, position products and services, endure competition, reduce costs and increase profit. BI also consolidates dissimilar and separate data sources in a single view or user interface. It standardizes data types, cleans erroneous data and computations and makes information access rapidly as needed.
In Sales, for example, the budget versus target sales or revenue can be compared and analyzed across time, geographical location, products, sales people and competition. In Inventory, for example, the demand and supply can be monitored and managed more efficiently, identifying the performance of each product based on peak and lean periods. In Finance, for example, account receivables, open balance, buckets, historical balance, assets and liabilities, and other key performance indicators can be measured and controlled. In Operations, for example, end-to-end procedures can be tracked down, identifying possible risks and coming up with appropriate solutions before errors or possible costs shall be incurred. In Marketing, for example, market basket analysis, product cross-selling, packaging, promotions, customer profiling, loyalty and retention programs can be strategically planned for lower inventory levels and higher sales. In Human Resources, for example, 201 files and other manpower information can be efficiently managed with the available skills set, staff allocation, performance rating, geographical assignment, time keeping and payroll. In Customer Service, for example, sales force activities, work flows, customer data, product status, and all other related customer information can be properly analyzed to improve the service.
The BI user interface where the analytical reports are viewed can be a straight table, pivot table, dashboard or ad-hoc report formats. A straight table is a static report with columns and rows. A pivot table consists of columns and rows that can be sliced-and-diced depending on the desired output. A dashboard may include tables, graphs, pie charts and gauges. An ad-hoc report may differ in format as it is not a standard or regular report being used.
To conclude, BI is not just a fad for reporting that will only facilitate work and be outmoded when constant innovation steps in. BI will definitely unleash the potentials of business having a well-based decision making strategy at the right time. It will just all depend on a company’s awareness and responsiveness to employ BI and address specific business challenges in data consolidation, data analysis and data management to make the business grow.
By: J.M. Agosto
June 22, 2008
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