The Business Value of Business Intelligence

The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate economist

The past decade has witnessed an arms race in American business: a wholesale deployment of information technology (IT) to the point at which some experts estimate that half of capital spending by business is invested in IT. The growth of companies such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, and Siebeland their consulting company partnersattests to the magnitude of this race. Most of that investment has been in what amounts to better plumbing, better systems for managing day-to-day operations, and more frequent and voluminous reports. There is little debate that these investments are necessary to operate many modern business enterprises. That said, our experience working with and talking to business and IT leaders at major companies in a variety of industries suggests that these companies are still data-rich but information-poor. In other words, these enterprises lack the kind of actionable information and analytical tools needed to improve profits and performance. Business intelligence (BI) is a response to this need. It is the next logical progression in management thinking about IT. The goal of our book is to show you how to follow the lead of companies who have capitalized on the potential of BI to improve profit and performance. While many major companies have implemented data warehouses, very few have used them to achieve BI. In many companies, data warehousing (DW) efforts have largely been limited to producing more reports, with a vague understanding of how this information will benefit the organization. However, other companies have gone beyond this and demonstrate the true potential of BI. For example,
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 Western Digital, a manufacturer of computer hard disk drives with annual sales of more than $3 billion, uses BI to better manage its inventory, supply chains, product lifecycles, and customer relationships. BI enabled the company to reduce operating costs by 50%. Capital One, a global financial services firm with more than 50 million customer accounts, uses BI to analyze and improve the profitability of its product lines as well as the effectiveness of its business processes and marketing programs.

Continental Airlines, a U.S. airline company that was near bankruptcy in the 1990s, invested $30 million in BI to improve its business processes and customer service. In the following six years, Continental reaped a staggering $500 million return on its BI investment for a return on investment (ROI) of more than 1,000%.

CompUSA, a major retailer of computer equipment and software, uses BI to analyze its sales trends. The company earned an ROI of more than $6 million in the first phase of the project.

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What is Business Intelligence?

Business intelligence (BI) is a business management term which refers to applications and technologies which are used to gather, provide access to, and analyze data and information about their company operations. Business intelligence systems can help companies to have a more comprehensive knowledge of the factors affecting their business, such as metrics on sales, production, internal operations, and they can help companies to make better business decisions.

Rationale for using (BI):

Business Intelligence applications and technologies can enable organizations to make more informed business decisions, and they may give a company a competitive advantage. For example, a company could use business intelligence applications or technologies to extrapolate information from indicators in the external environment and forecast the future trends in their sector. Business intelligence is used to improve the timeliness and quality of information, and enable managers to be able to better understand the position of their firm as in comparison to its competitors. Business intelligence applications and technologies can help companies to analyze changing trends in market share; changes in customer behavior and spending patterns; customers' preferences; company capabilities; and market conditions. Business intelligence can be used to help analysts and managers
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determine which adjustments are most likely to respond to changing trends. Using BI systems can help companies to develop a more consistent, data-based decision making process for business decisions, which can produce better results than making business decisions by "guesswork." As well, business intelligence applications can enhance communication among departments, coordinate activities, and enable companies to respond more quickly to changes (e.g., in financial conditions, customer preferences, supply chain operations, etc.). When a BI system is well-designed and properly integrated into a company's processes and decision-making process, it may be able to improve a company's performance. Having access to timely and accurate information is an important resource for a company, which can expedite decision-making and improve customers' experience. In the competitive customer-service sector, companies need to have accurate, up-to-date information on customer preferences, so that the company can quickly adapt to their changing demands. Business Intelligence enables companies to gather information on the trends in the marketplace and come up with innovative products or services in anticipation of customer's changing demands. Business Intelligence applications can also help managers to be better informed about actions that a company's competitors are taking. As well, BI can help companies to share selected strategic information with business partners. For example, some businesses use BI systems to share information with their suppliers (e.g., inventory levels, performance metrics, and other supply chain data). BI systems can also be designed to provide managers with information on the state of economic trends or marketplace factors, or to provide managers with in depth knowledge about the internal operations of a business.

BI Technologies:
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For the BI technology system to work effectively, companies address the need to have a secure computer system which can specify different levels of user access to the data 'warehouse', depending on whether the user is a junior staffer, manager, or executive. As well, a BI system needs to have sufficient data capacity, a plan for how long data will be stored (data retention). Analysts also need to set benchmark and performance targets for the system. Business intelligence analysts have developed software tools to gather and analyze large quantities of unstructured data, such as production metrics, sales statistics, attendance reports, and customer attrition figures. Each BI vendor typically develops Business Intelligence systems differently, to suit the demands of different sectors (e.g., retail companies, financial services companies, etc.). Business intelligence software and applications includes a range of tools. Some BI applications are used to analyze performance, projects, or internal operations, such as AQL Associative Query Logic; Score carding; Business activity monitoring; Business Performance Management and Performance Measurement; Business Planning; Business Process Reengineering; Competitive Analysis; User/End-user Query and Reporting; Enterprise Management systems; Executive Information Systems (EIS); Supply Chain Management/Demand Chain Management; and Finance and Budgeting tools. Other BI applications are used to store and analyze data, such as Data mining (DM), Data Farming, and Data warehouses; Decision Support Systems (DSS) and Forecasting; Document warehouses and Document Management; Knowledge Management; Mapping, Information visualization, and Dash boarding; Management Information Systems (MIS); Geographic Information Systems (GIS); Trend Analysis; Software as a service (SaaS) Business Intelligence offerings (On Demand)- similar to traditional BI solutions but software is hosted for customers by a provider. Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) and multidimensional analysis; sometimes called "Analytics" (based
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on the "hypercube" or "cube"); Real time business intelligence; Statistics and Technical Data Analysis; Web Mining, Text mining and Systems intelligence. Other BI applications are used to analyze or manage the "human" side of businesses, such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Marketing tools and Human Resources applications. Web Personalization For examples of implemented Business Intelligence systems; see the BI screenshot collection at The Dashboard Spy.

History of Business Intelligence

Sun Tzu's The Art of War highlighted the importance of collecting and analyzing information. Sun Tzu claimed that to succeed in war, a general should have full knowledge of their own strengths and weaknesses and full knowledge of the enemy's strengths and weaknesses. Lack of either one might result in defeat. Prior to the start of the Information Age in the late 20th century, businesses had to collect data from non-automated sources. Businesses then lacked the computing resources to properly analyze the data, and as a result, companies often made business decisions primarily on the basis of intuition. As businesses started automating more and more systems, more and more data became available. However, collection remained a challenge due to a lack of infrastructure for data
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exchange or to incompatibilities between systems. Analysis of the data that was gathered and reports on the data sometimes took months to generate. Such reports allowed informed long-term strategic decision-making. However, short-term tactical decisionmaking continued to rely on intuition. In modern businesses, increasing standards, automation, and technologies have led to vast amounts of data becoming available. Data warehouse technologies have set up repositories to store this data. Improved Extract, transform, load (ETL) and even recently Enterprise Application Integration tools have increased the speedy collecting of data. Business intelligence has now become the art of sifting through large amounts of data, extracting pertinent information, and turning that information into knowledge upon which actions can be taken. Business intelligence software incorporates the ability to mine data, analyze, and report. Some modern BI software allow users to cross-analyze and perform deep data research rapidly for better analysis of sales or performance on an individual, department, or company level. In modern applications of business intelligence software, managers are able to quickly compile reports from data for forecasting, analysis, and business decision making. In 1989 Howard Dresner, a Research Fellow at Gartner Group popularized "BI" as an umbrella term to describe a set of concepts and methods to improve business decision making by using factbased support systems. Dresner left Gartner in 2005 and joined Hyperion Solutions as its Chief Strategy Officer.

Designing and Implementing a Business Intelligence Program

When implementing a BI program one might like to pose a number of questions and take a number of resultant decisions, such as:
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Goal Alignment queries: The first step determines the short and medium-term purposes of the program. What strategic goal(s) of the organization will the program address? What organizational mission/vision does it relate to? A crafted hypothesis needs to detail how this initiative will eventually improve results / performance (i.e. a strategy map). Baseline queries: Current information-gathering competency needs assessing. Does the organization have the capability of monitoring important sources of information? What data does the organization collect and how does it store that data? What are the statistical parameters of this data, e.g. how much random variation does it contain? Does the organization measure this? Cost and risk queries: The financial consequences of a new BI initiative should be estimated. It is necessary to assess the cost of the present operations and the increase in costs associated with the BI initiative? What is the risk that the initiative will fail? This risk assessment should be converted into a financial metric and included in the planning. Customer and Stakeholder queries: Determine who will benefit from the initiative and who will pay. Who has a stake in the current procedure? What kinds of customers/stakeholders will benefit directly from this initiative? Who will benefit indirectly? What are the quantitative / qualitative benefits? Is the specified initiative the best way to increase satisfaction for all kinds of customers, or is there a better way? How will customers' benefits be monitored? What about employees, shareholders, distribution channel members? Metrics-related queries: These information requirements must be operationalized into clearly defined metrics. One must decide what metrics to use for each piece of information being gathered. Are these the best metrics? How do we know that? How many metrics need to be tracked? If this is a large number (it usually is), what kind of system can
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be used to track them? Are the metrics standardized, so they can be benchmarked against performance in other organizations? What are the industry standard metrics available?

Measurement Methodology-related queries: One should establish a methodology or a procedure to determine the best (or acceptable) way of measuring the required metrics. What methods will be used, and how frequently will the organization collect data? Do industry standards exist for this? Is this the best way to do the measurements? How do we know that? Results-related queries: Someone should monitor the BI program to ensure that objectives are being met. Adjustments in the program may be necessary. The program should be tested for accuracy, reliability, and validity. How can one demonstrate that the BI initiative (rather than other factors) contributed to a change in results? How much of the change was probably random?

Business Intelligence Tools

Business intelligence tools are a type of application software designed to help the business intelligence (BI) business processes. Specifically they are generally tools that aid in the analysis, and presentation of data.

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Reporting software: generates aggregated views of data

to keep the management informed about the state of their business Data mining: extraction of consumer information from a database by utilizing software that can isolate and identify previously unknown patterns or trends in large amounts of data. There are a variety of data mining techniques that reveal different types of patterns. Some of the techniques that belong here are Statistical methods (particularly Business statistics) and Neural networks as very advanced means of analyzing data

Business Performance Management Business

Business performance management (BPM) is a set of management and analytic processes that enable the performance of an organization to be managed with a view to achieving one or more pre-selected goals. Synonyms for "business performance management" include "corporate performance management" and "enterprise performance management". If we regard BPM and Corporate performance management (CPM) as near synonyms: BPM would serve as the more generalized term. Use of the acronym "BPM" can cause confusion with "business process management". Use of terms such as "corporate performance management" or "enterprise performance management" can avoid that confusion.

Performance

Management

(BPM):

BPM has three main activities:

1. the selection of goals 2. the consolidation of measurement information relevant to an organizations progress against these goals, 3. the interventions made by managers in light of this information with a view to improving future performance against these goals Although presented here sequentially, typically all three activities will run concurrently, with the interventions made by managers
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affecting the choice of goals, the measurement information monitored, and the activities being undertaken within the organization. Because BPM activities in large organizations often involve the collation and reporting of large volumes of data, many software vendors, particularly those offering "business intelligence" tools, market products intended to assist in this process. As a result of this marketing effort, BPM is often (wrongly) seen as being an activity that relies on software systems to work, and many definitions of BPM explicitly suggest software as being a necessary component of the approach.

Using Business Intelligence to Capture Business Value

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In economic terms, the business value of an investment (an asset) is the net present value of the after-tax cash flows associated with the investment. For example, the business value of an investment in a manufacturing plant is the sum of the incremental after-tax cash flows associated with the sale of the products produced at the plant. Similarly, an investment in BI creates an asset that must be used to generate incremental aftertax cash flow. Accordingly, BI investments should be subjected to a rigorous assessment of how the investment will result in increased revenues, reduced costs, or both. Although there are hundreds of ways to express business benefits, no business value is associated with an investment unless the benefits achieved result in increased after-tax cash flows. Again, there is no business value associated with an investment unless the benefits achieved connect to strategic goals. For business, the focus is on primarily increased after-tax cash flows; for government agencies, improved performance and service to citizens. These principles apply to investments in factories, equipment, and BI. For example, it is common for BI vendor value propositions to emphasize business benefits such as agility, responsiveness, customer intimacy, information sharing, flexibility, and collaboration. But investing in BI to achieve such business benefits may actually destroy business value unless those attributes can be defined in operational terms and realized through business processes that affect revenues or costs. For example, a $2 million investment in a BI application must result in incremental after-tax cash flow of at least $2 million or the organization will suffer a reduction in assets. To illustrate this point, many companies use BI to improve customer segmentation, customer acquisition, and customer retention. These improvements can be linked to reduced customer acquisition costs, increased revenues, and increased customer lifetime value, which translate to increased after-tax cash flows. However, a BI investment that improves demand
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forecasting will not deliver business value unless the forecasts are actually incorporated into operational business processes that then deliver reduced inventory, reduced order expediting costs, or some other tangible economic benefit. In other words, the business benefit improved forecasting is useless unless it is somehow converted into incremental after-tax cash flow. Looked at more broadly, the quest for delivering business value via BI can be seen as a matter of determining how an organization can use BI to Improve management processes (such as planning, controlling, measuring, monitoring, and/or changing) so that management can increase revenues, reduce costs, or both Improve operational processes (such as fraud detection, sales campaign execution, customer order processing, purchasing, and/or accounts payable processing) so that the business can increase revenues, reduce costs, or both In other words, the business value of BI lies in its use within management processes that affect operational processes that drive revenue or reduce costs, and/or in its use within those operational processes themselves. Just like Harrahs, many companies these days aspire to use customer relationship management strategies that distinguish among customers based on their value. In retail banking, a customer with loans, large savings accounts, a checking account with large balances, and credit card balances who uses online banking is much more valuable than a customer with only a low-balance checking account who comes into a branch frequently. Clearly, the bank would not want to lose the former customer, whereas it might be willing to lose the latter. For the bank to implement a customer relationship management strategy based on the difference in customer value, it first needs BI applications that allow the bank to know which customers are highly valuable, which are valuable, which are less valuable, and which are not valuable. But that knowledge alone is not enough to ensure that the bank does not lose highly valuable customers. It must also have management processes and operational processes that take account of the differences in customer value and treat the highly valuable
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customers preferentially. For example, the bank might waive a late fee on a loan payment for the valuable customer but not for the less valuable customer.

Microsoft Business Intelligence

Why Microsoft Business Intelligence?
Microsoft leads the industry in business intelligence solutions. Microsoft business intelligence solutions are scalable and designed to evolve with your business. With continuous innovation since initial release, Microsoft business intelligence solutions are built on open, industry-wide standards making integration with your other systems easier and less costly than the alternatives.

BI Benefits:
Improve organizational effectiveness
Microsoft business intelligence enables you to create and manage information through an integrated system that includes core business productivity features, such as collaboration tools, search capabilities, and content management. The workplace becomes highly efficient, resulting in cost savings and low total cost of ownership (TCO).

Enable IT efficiency while reducing costs

With Microsoft business intelligence, you can cut costs and reduce complexity by leveraging existing IT investments to extend the reach of technology you already own. Because Microsoft Excel, SQL Server and SharePoint are integrated and inter-operable, you can rely on your existing IT resources and skill sets for faster implementation and lower total cost of ownership.
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BI In Action:
Accurate, integrated data empowers success at North Umbria University
Stakeholders at North Umbria University use Microsoft Business Intelligence solutions to gain access to near real-time, streaming reports to support effective decision-making. "Within one year the team was able to launch the full decision support system, a user friendly web-based portal, called North Umbria World. It includes dashboards, scorecards, KPIs and advanced drill-down capabilities. We almost surprised ourselves with the rather quick and smooth implementation process -- it really exceeded expectations every step of the way." Eugene McCrossan, Financial Planning Director for North Umbria

Conceptus Achieves Effective, Integrated Solution at Half the Cost

Conceptus deployed Microsoft business intelligence solutions to achieve increased visibility into key data and trends at half the cost of a competitor. "By choosing Microsoft, we gained an effective BI solution at half the cost of an alternative. We were able to use our existing CRM and ERP systems and our existing data warehouse for building the OLAP cubes." Jeff Letasse, Vice President of Information Technology and Business Systems

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How Microsoft Business Intelligence Works?

Microsoft business intelligence expands the reach of your investments in the Microsoft productivity platform, data infrastructure and collaboration tools you already own. Our solution delivers business intelligence by integrating the strengths of these products on a single platform to empower informed business decisions. We offer a full range of business intelligence solutions that work together to form a comprehensive, end-to-end solution with the scalability and vision to help you drive your business forward.

Microsoft Office:
Microsoft business intelligence solutions are built on the tools where you already spend your workday within Microsoft Office applications like Outlook and Excel. Because you can rely on the same intuitive interface you already know, there is less time needed for training, and you are able to adopt the new systems more quickly and easily, keeping costs down.

Microsoft SharePoint:
SharePoint Server provides all the tools your teams need to work together effectively, by allowing them to collaborate on and

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publish documents, implement workflows, and share critical information.

Microsoft SQL Server:

SQL Server brings together all your data into a powerful, scalable, enterprise-ready engine that can store massive amounts of data and support high query loads and clustering.

Products and Solutions

Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SharePoint Microsoft Office

Some Features of These Products:

Data Warehousing:
Microsoft data warehousing solutions are designed to store and connect your information securely, making the analysis, extraction, transformation, and loading processes easier. Because data is aggregated, compressed and stored in a dynamic, scalable, integrated system, organizations can reduce long-term storage requirements and generate reports faster. Employees spend less time searching for the right data and more time on higher-value work and better decision-making.

Data Quality:
Microsoft Business Intelligence solutions protect the high quality of your data with secure integration and tight interoperability across multiple data sources. You can rely on high-quality data that is accurate, timely, meaningful and complete.

Data Mining:
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Microsoft data mining solutions empower people to go beyond simple data analysis to identify hidden trends, problems or relationships in the information. Once insights are extracted from patterns, clusters and trends, employees can better identify root causes of problems and predict future outcomes.

Business Intelligence for Different Departments of an Organization

BI For IT:
Microsoft Business Intelligence solutions allow you to leverage your existing technology investments to enable your IT staff to gain insight beyond the event logs and performance counters helping staff identify root causes behind events and make course corrections that improve performance. Microsoft Business Intelligence empowers IT staff to: Go beyond canned operational reports with integrated, interactive performance dashboards, comprehensive scorecards, and powerful analytics all built on Microsoft platform components Aggregate seemingly disparate metrics into a single overall performance scorecard With Managed self-service Business Intelligence, empower users to create their own ad-hoc reports using familiar, easyto-use tools they already know Identify patterns and exceptions with data trending
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 Understand performance issues such as capacity spikes or downtime with greater event detail Rely on a robust security model that provides data security starting at web sites and dashboards, all the way down to cell-level detail Deploy IT staff more efficiently

BI For Finance:
Todays financial professional needs integrated, accurate information to go beyond producing monthly reports and quarterly financial statements. Microsoft Business Intelligence empowers financial staff to: Gain visibility into the entire organizations performance through familiar, easy-to-use dashboards that monitor key financial metrics With an integrated, unified, trusted data platform, ensure data quality and create reports with numbers people can count on Get up to speed quickly and spend less time on training by relying on tools you already know and use every day, such as Microsoft Excel Minimize manual financial processes and reduce errors in spreadsheets Enable organizational transparency to meet compliance requirements

BI For Operations:
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Operations managers need unified, accurate, up-to-date information to track inventory, analyze shipping costs, and resolve production problems quickly and efficiently. With Microsoft Business Intelligence solutions, Operations managers are empowered to: Monitor and improve operational performance by consolidating data across multiple information sources Gain visibility up and down the supply chain, across multiple locations and time zones Support quality initiatives such as Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma Accurately forecast demand and spot trends to align resources more effectively Measure and manage vendor performance Analyze returns, exchanges, new orders, cancellations, raw materials and distribution costs Optimize transportation methods by analyzing packing data and weights Identify inefficient processes in production, customer service, and order processing Get up to speed quickly and spend less time on training by relying on tools you already know and use every day, such as Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Outlook

BI For Sales:
Todays sales team needs unified, accurate, up-todate information to analyze sales forecasts, targets, quotas and customer buying patterns, and promotionsto drive sales growth.

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Microsoft Business Intelligence solutions empower sales professionals to: Gain visibility into the sales pipeline sooner through familiar, easy-to-use dashboards and scorecards that track performance and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) Analyze sales data and trends to identify issues and implement solutions that help meet sales quotas by target dates Make accurate forecasts about future sales and get ahead of the next sales cycle Understand and predict customer buying patterns to boost profitability Analyze purchasing history to identify the best qualified sales prospects to increase effectiveness and productivity Identify and capitalize on new sales opportunities in a fastmoving competitive environment

Business Intelligence for Industry

Government:
Every day, government workers need relevant, accurate information to make decisions that ensure citizens receive a wide range of critical serviceswhile also making the best use of limited resources.
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Microsoft Business Intelligence solutions help agency workers share and analyze information in context when they need it most, using familiar technology they already know and like to increase efficiency and improve performance. Microsoft business intelligence solutions empower government workers to: Gain greater visibility into all aspects of the organization by unifying data across multiple sources and locations Streamline governance with policy-based management, so administrators can govern common operations with a global set of business rules Automatically maintain detailed audit trails to help ensure information is traceable and certifiable Reduce training requirements by giving government workers access to information and BI capabilities within established workflows and applications they already know how to use Combine BI capabilities with enterprise search, collaboration, and content management functionality to maximize efficiency

Manufacturing:
From the shop floor to the top floor, everyone throughout the manufacturing enterprise needs a unified, accurate view of the business to make informed, relevant decisions. When employees share the same view of the business, they can collaborate more effectively and find new ways to increase production and profitability. A Microsoft business intelligence solution empowers people at every level of the manufacturing enterprise to: Gain visibility across the supply chain and into enterprise and operational data through portals and familiar, easy-touse desktop and Microsoft Office tools
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 Reduce risk by unifying reliable, accurate data from diverse sources and providing regulatory compliance by validating and documenting every aspect of production Achieve rapid user adoption and reduce training time with easy-to-use, familiar tools Increase supply chain collaboration and improve productivity because everyone is "on the same page." With visibility into supply chain processes, speed new product launches and reduce time to market, without sacrificing quality

Financial Services:
Today more than ever, financial institutions need accurate, up-to-date information about key performance indicators to facilitate better decision-making in all areas of operations, including customer acquisition and retention, sales and service, risk management and compliance, and financial forecasting. Microsoft Business Intelligence solutions empower employees at financial institutions to: Gain visibility into the entire organizations performance through familiar, easy-to-use dashboards that monitor key financial metrics, such as cash flow, assets and liabilities, loans, capital performance, investments, pricing, and critical industry trends Analyze past performance and plan for future performance based on accurate, complete data Get up to speed quickly and spend less time on training by relying on tools you already know and use every day, such as Microsoft Excel Reduce risk and comply with regulations by automatically creating accurate reports and documentation Gain deeper customer insight and critical knowledge to develop more profitable customer relationships Retain profitable customers with a holistic customer view that helps identify and retain the most profitable customers
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Higher Education:
Educational institutions face increasing demand for services at the same time that resources are dwindling. To optimize limited resources and increase efficiency, institutions must efficiently budget, plan, track and share accurate, timely information among staff, students and the public. With Microsoft Business Intelligence solutions, everyone in the institution gains access to the information they need to make relevant, cost-effective decisions. Microsoft Business Intelligence solutions empower employees at educational institutions to: Gain visibility into operations through dashboards that present key performance indicators (KPIs) and other critical metrics Effectively track admissions and other trends to accurately forecast and plan for future resource needs Monitor fund-raising efforts, donor histories and patterns in giving Break down communication silos by unifying data and making it accessible through an integrated data warehouse Analyze recruiting and retention data, grade and graduation trends, tuition discounting programs, and other information Respond quickly to legislative and grant requests with up-todate reporting and financial information Give faculty a clear picture of student performance at an individual or group level to facilitate instruction

Health Care:
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Healthcare organizations need accurate, timely information to address escalating costs, ever-changing regulations, and increased demand for medical services from an aging population. Microsoft Business Intelligence solutions empower employees at healthcare organizations to: Gain visibility into the entire organizations performance through familiar, easy-to-use dashboards that monitor key performance metrics, such as patient care statistics, staffing projections, and workflows Analyze and monitor claims data more effectively to prevent fraud Use tools analytics to better understand financial data to achieve cost savings Achieve rapid user adoption and reduce training time with easy-to-use, familiar tools

Retail:
Retail organizations need accurate, timely information to react to changing market conditions, identify new customer segments, improve inventory management, and optimize overall store performance. Microsoft business intelligence solutions empower employees at retail organizations to: Increase insight about customer buying patterns with realtime analytics and reporting Monitor and measure store performance with better visibility of key performance indicators (KPIs) based on historical information, current conditions, and future goals Optimize operations by analyzing current trends, using advanced visualizations and graphics to perform what if analysis on vendor performance, inventory, and store operations
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 Make accurate forecasts about future sales and get ahead of the next sales cycle

Capabilities of BI:
Enable business users to store & share office documents in a Managed Environment Show data in the context of a diagram Show data in the context of an interactive map Identify and automatically clean up bad data Combine data from broad variety of sources Create manage and distribute standardized and formatted reports

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Future Outlook
The Next Wave of Business Intelligence
Just as security technology is something without which organizations cant survive, so is BI technology something without which organizations cant succeed. However, BI as a set of tools and concepts for managing organizational and individual performance still has a long way to go in reaching all of the necessary people and processes in companies, government agencies, hospitals, and universities. IDC research into the BI market has identified that it moves in 15-year cycles. The first of these periods, from 1975 to 1990, was characterized by production reporting on mainframes. (Companies such as SAS, IBI, and IBM began in the BI market during the early years of this cycle.) The second 15-year period, from 1990 to 2005, saw the beginning of the "modern era" of BI, characterized by end user friendlier client/server-based BI tools from vendors such as Business Objects, Cognos, and Hyperion. Eventually query, reporting, and OLAP technology migrated from client/server to Web-based architecture with the development of broad suites of BI platforms. As the BI market is maturing, the focus of organizations, BI software vendors, and systems integrators is changing. To date, the BI market has primarily focused on delivery of information to analysts and managers. Progress has been made in delivering information faster and through various means (e.g., reports, dashboards, and alerts on PDAs). However, analysts and managers represent only a relatively small portion of an organization, estimated at about 15.20% of employees. In fact, IDC believes that the market for reporting and OLAP tools for power users and analysts has reached a level of maturity that cannot sustain the growth rates of the past in terms of new license revenue. Instead, larger IT vendors such as Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM along with the existing specialty BI vendors are now targeting this market. As the market continues to mature, it
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is highly likely that the larger IT vendors will continue to gain share. But what about the rest of the organization? Whether were talking about information workers with higher levels of freedom to decide about their daily workflows and processes or line-ofbusiness employees who may be restricted by systems and policies in how they perform their duties, a vast population exists whose business intelligence requirements have not been met to their full potential. The next wave of BI will reach out to these employees as well as other organizational stakeholders such as suppliers, partners, customers, and government agencies to improve information delivery and decision support functionality for all. This shift in market focus can be only partially addressed through existing BI software, which has already mentioned was created with the analyst or power user as the intended audience. Clearly a frontline employee will have limited use for an OLAP or an ad hoc query tool. In fact, to address the needs of frontline employees and line of- business managers, organizations must redefine and expand what they mean by BI. The expanded vision of BI must take into account not only the technologies involved but also business drivers and performance management methodologies.

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