What is Business Intelligence?

Applications that transform data into meaningful information which helps bussiness
make better decisions. A brief history, once upon a time, the term bussiness intelligence
came into use around the 1950s, and it grew out of technology called decision support.

Bussiness Intelligence systems have grown more powerful dan comprehensive, mainly
due to:
- increased data collection
- greater storage capacity

Company now have access to smartphone metadata, internet usage records, social
media activity, etc. Bussiness intelligence platforms sift through this data to find patterns
and trends. By 2018, the bussiness intelligence market is expected to be worth $20.1
billion.

Data comes in three main forms:

- structured
- semistructured
- unstructured

 Unstructured data
Unstructured data is information that can't be easily read by computers. It's difficult to
organize in traditional databases, because it can't be stored in rows or columns. A good
rule of thumb is that 80% of all data produced is unstructured.

 Structured data
Structured data resides in a fixed form, such as name collection forms on websites. It's
easy for computers to read and query such information, because the data is already
standardized. Company data isn't always in one location.

how do companies store and manage all this data?

It's usually found accross:
- crm programs
- marketing automation systems
- social media platforms
- and more
The first step in BI is taking inventory of the data your company produces.
  Data warehouse
Data warehouses are used to consolidate disparate data in a central location. Using a
process known as extract, transform, and load (etl), warehouses standardize data
across systems, which allows it to be queried.

 Data marts
Data marts are essentially smaller, more focused warehouses. Instead of aggregating
data accross a company, a data mart might store the information of just a single
department. Data marts limit the complexity of databases, and are cheaper to
implement than full warehouses.

How does information get to a central location?

Exact, transform, and load

The method for standardixing and centralizing data is knwon as extract, transform, and
load (etl).
 Extract
Raw data is extracted from a source program (such as crm or erp software). This is
often the step where unstructured data (such as notes, or author information) is tagged
with metadata to make it easier to find.
 Transform
During this step, the data is normalized. In order to properly analyze data, it must be in
the same format-think apples to apples.
 Load
Finally, data is transferred into the central warehouse or data mart. This process can
occure every week, day, hour, or even minute. The more often this is done, the more up
to date analytic reports will be.

What is hadoop ?
Hadoop is an infrastructured for storing and processing large sets of data accross
multiple servers. Instead of centralizes files, hadoop uses a cluster system that allows
files to be stored on multiple servers. Hadoop can be complex to implement and run,
and isn't well suited for ad hoc queries. Hadoop is best suited for companies that
produce massive volumes of data, such as facebook, or ebay.

Map reduce
Map reduce is the processing arm of hadoop. It allows data to be queried and
processed on the server where it resides, instead of transporting the data accross the
network to be analyzed on the computer. This can save huge amounts of network
bandwidth and resources.

Analyzing big data

Data analysis is the reason companies invest in bi.the insights from analytics reports
influence company direction, product lineups, and even hiring decisions. Here are some
of the key term and concepts.

Data mining
Data mining is the analysis of larges sets f data in order to find patterns and
correlations.
It can be used to:
- group sets of data
- find ouliers
- draw connectons
It could be argued that all the "intelligence" in business intelligence results from data
mining.

Text analytics
Text analytics software combs through unstructured textual data to find patterns. This is
particularly useful for analyzing the sentiment of social media posts, or online customer
feedback.

Business analytics
By analyzing and drawing connections between data, companies can:
- predict competitive advantages
- reveal unknown innefficencies

There are three main forms of business analytics

- descriptive
- predictive
- decision

 Descriptive analytics
The base upon which other types of analytics are built. Descriptive programs analyze
past data and identify trends and relationships. Raw data can be grouped into easily
digestible pieces, such as the number of unique page-views, or the sales numbers for a
specific department.

 Predictive analytics
Predictive analytics searches for a correlation between a single unit or factor, and the
features that pertain on it. The goal is often to find the same correlation across different
data sets, which would allow companies to infer future patterns from past trends. This is
an increasingly popular form of analytics.

 Decision analytics
This software helps companies analyze future industries ad market spaces decision
analytics looks at a company's internal data, then analyzes external cinditions (such as
manufacturing trends, or predicted supply shortages) to recommend the best couse of
action for a company.

Turning data into powerpoints

Business intelligence reporting

We've covered the terms and technologies behind big data, now lets look at how such
findings are presented.

Data visualization
A graphic display of the results of data mining or analytics, often in real-time.
Visualization sofware is part of the shift towards greater usability among bi programs,
and is driving force in the market.

Dashboards
Dashboards are the interfaces that represent specific analyses. They're particularly
helpful for those who don't wish to interact with software through a command-line
interface.

State of the market

Where is BI headed?
Market research shows that more companies than ever before are implementing bi
programs. The majority view it as a business opportunity. However, getting access to
clean, high-quality data remains difficult for some companies.
Tdwi's latets survey
1. Had standardized one or more bi applications throughout their business
2. Reported that they have no bi in their organization at all
3. See big data and business intelligence as an opportunity
4. See big data as a problem

There is a different survey

A survey by informationweek shows why companies are adopting business intelligence:

1. List predicting customer behavior as the biggest factor driving their interest in big data
2. Claim accessing timely, reliable data stands as their biggest information obstacle
3. Answered that they were interested in using business intelligence applications in their
business

Current trends?
In-memory processing
In-memory systems utilize ram memory-instead of harddrives-to execute queries. This
vastly increase application performance. As solid state memory prices continue to drop,
in-memory processing will likely become the standard.

Usability and visualisation

Business intelligence software is making its way out of the it department. Visualization
dashboards and intuitive ux design allow programs to be used across departments.
Companies that implement user-friendly software throughout their worplace stand to
benefit from the insights produced from such collaboration.

Business intelligence in action

02 Ireland case study

02 Ireland is a large cell-phone carrier, and telefonica europe subsdiary. Customer were
buying their pre-paid sim cards for their phones, then leaving the country. 02 Ireland
didn't want to spend marketing resources on these customers, bu didn't have a way to
segment from their marketing efforts.

02 Ireland contracted teradata to centralize their information, then contracted cognos to

analyze the data. Using their new bi system, they were able to target just the customers
with long-term prospects.