A project on

Business Intelligence and Innovation

MBA 1,

Submitted by

Priya Singh,
Shrey Khanna,
Anusha Sinha,
Ankita Bohidar,
Navya Narula.

For the subject of

Applications of Disruptive Technologies in Business

(CSIT 648)
Table of Content
 INTRODUCTION

Business intelligence (BI) comprises the strategies and technologies used by enterprises for the
data analysis of business information. BI technologies provide historical, current and predictive
views of business operations. Common functions of business intelligence technologies include
reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, data mining, process mining, complex event
processing, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining, predictive analytics
and prescriptive analytics. BI technologies can handle large amounts of structured and sometimes
unstructured data to help identify, develop and otherwise create new strategic business
opportunities. They aim to allow for the easy interpretation of these big data. Identifying new
opportunities and implementing an effective strategy based on insights can provide businesses with
a competitive market advantage and long-term stability.

Business intelligence can be used by enterprises to support a wide range of business decisions
ranging from operational to strategic. Basic operating decisions include product positioning or
pricing. Strategic business decisions involve priorities, goals and directions at the broadest level.
In all cases, BI is most effective when it combines data derived from the market in which a
company operates (external data) with data from company sources internal to the business such as
financial and operations data (internal data). When combined, external and internal data can
provide a complete picture which, in effect, creates an "intelligence" that cannot be derived from
any singular set of data. Amongst myriad uses, business intelligence tools empower organizations
to gain insight into new markets, to assess demand and suitability of products and services for
different market segments and to gauge the impact of marketing efforts.

According to Solomon Negash and Paul Gray, We define business intelligence (BI) as systems
that combine:

 Data gathering
 Data storage
 Knowledge management
On the other hand, Innovation in its modern meaning is "a new idea, creative thoughts, new
imaginations in form of device or method". Innovation is often also viewed as the application of
better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs. Such
innovation takes place through the provision of more-effective products, processes, services,
technologies, or business models that are made available to markets, governments and society. An
innovation is something original and more effective and, as a consequence, new, that "breaks into"
the market or society. Innovation is related to, but not the same as, invention, as innovation is more
apt to involve the practical implementation of an invention (I,e. new / improved ability) to make a
meaningful impact in the market or society, and not all innovations require an invention.

Innovation often manifests itself via the engineering process, when the problem being solved is of
a technical or scientific nature. The opposite of innovation is exnovation.

While a novel device is often described as an innovation, in economics, management science, and
other fields of practice and analysis, innovation is generally considered to be the result of a process
that brings together various novel ideas in such a way that they affect society. In industrial
economics, innovations are created and found empirically from services to meet growing consumer
demand.

In business and in economics, innovation can become a catalyst for growth. With rapid
advancements in transportation and communications over the past few decades, the old-world
concepts of factor endowments and comparative advantage which focused on an area's unique
inputs are outmoded for today's global economy. Economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950),
who contributed greatly to the study of innovation economics, argued that industries must
incessantly revolutionize the economic structure from within, that is innovate with better or more
effective processes and products, as well as market distribution, such as the connection from the
craft shop to factory. He famously asserted that "creative destruction is the essential fact about
capitalism". Entrepreneurs continuously look for better ways to satisfy their consumer base with
improved quality, durability, service and price which come to fruition in innovation with advanced
technologies and organizational strategies.
 HISTORY OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Business Intelligence 1.0

As business intelligence became a commonly known phrase in the late 1990’s and early
2000’s, dozens of new vendors hit the market. During this period, there were two basic
functions of BI: producing data and reports, and organizing it and visualizing it in a
presentable way. Yet there remained two significant issues holding back this developing
phase of the technology: complexity, and time.

Too many projects were owned by the IT department, meaning that most users were still
not capable of executing BI tasks on their own. Existing BI tools had not been developed
with anyone but experts in mind, and extensive analytics training was required to gain
insights. And because data was siloed, it took more time to formulate and deliver reports
to decision makers.

Only expert technical experts were able to utilize advanced data analysis software. Tools
began to evolve to cater to non-technical users, but it happened slowly.

Business Intelligence 2.0

The dawn of the 21st century marked a distinct turning point, as technologies developed to
address issues of both complexity and speed. They were also bolstered by the onset of
Cloud-based programs that expanded and simplified the reach of BI platforms. BI 2.0
included a host of different technologies such as real-time processing, which incorporated
information from events as they happened into data warehouses, allowing companies to
make decisions based on the most recent information available.

Other technologies that came into play included self-service access for non-expert users,
meaning that employees could now complete projects without interference from the IT
department.

The exponential growth of the Internet supported and advanced these developments, in part
through the genesis of social networking tools. Facebook, Twitter, and blogs gave users
very simple and very quick ways of sharing ideas and opinions.
It also provided a way for users to review methods and software, and more broadly
disseminate a basic understanding of the different uses of business intelligence. The more
that people communicated, the more that they understood.

By 2005, the increasing interconnectivity of the business world meant that companies
needed real-time information, for a host of reasons. Chiefly they needed to keep abreast
of the competition, and understand what their consumers wanted and what they thought
of their company.

BI was no longer an added utility, or a mere advantage. It was becoming a requirement

for businesses looking to stay competitive, and even to remain afloat, in an entirely new,
data-driven environment.

Empowering End Users into the Modern Day

The agility and speed of the mid-2000s business intelligence platform has undergone an
intense refining process. Tool specification, expanding self-service options, and improving
visualization are three of the most important traits of the next frontier of BI evolution.

BI tools in the present day are often designed with a very specific industry in mind, be it
healthcare, law enforcement, or even professional sports. Known as “software
verticalization,” this growth of industry-specific tools has contributed significantly to
increased adoption of business intelligence.

Self-service tools and visualization features rely on one another for their growth. The big
data revolution and explosion of the Internet left organizations with more data than before.
Each person creates increasingly large amounts of information. Over 204 million emails
are sent per minute.

Companies required even more visualization tools to actionably make sense of it.
Visualization tools began to evolve to include the end-user even more. More platforms
empowered users to complete self-service access, meaning that they could explore and
utilize their data on their own, without training.
Cloud BI and Mobile BI

As more companies offered these capabilities, unique, cutting-edge attributes became the
only way to stay ahead of the curve. Vendors experimented with faster and cheaper tools.

One way to achieve both was through cloud BI, which hosts the software on the Internet,
reducing storage costs and making access to organizational data and insights faster and
more convenient.

Tangential to the cloud is the rise of mobile-empowered platforms, which allows users to
work with BI on-the-go on smartphones, tablets, and other devices.

As tools are perfected and improved, they are also being made simpler and more
convenient, encouraging wider adaptation.
 SWOT ANALYSIS

1. STRENGTHS

The basic strength of Business Intelligence (BI) is the mere accuracy and availability of
critical information which allows the business to take strategic decisions with complete
precision.

For Example: The vast data banks owned by Amazon Inc. have allowed the company to
take critical decisions relating to the customers which has ensured its survival in the
competitive market.

2. WEAKNESSES

The only weakness of Business Intelligence (BI) is the high cost of adoption that needs to
be paid by the companies.

For Example: In the E-Commerce market of India, companies like Flipkart and Jabong
have acquired Business Intelligence strategies while the company name SNAPDEAL did
not have the revenue to acquire it and as a result is failing.

3. OPPORTUNITIES

The emerging opportunities of Business Intelligence relates with the adoption of more and
more data points (DP) from the market which gives them more information about what the
customers want and feel about your company.

For Example: Reliance has launched “GIGA FIBER”, which a broadband service that is
purely based on the demand of the same in select locations. The possibility of getting “Giga
Fiber” in your locality depends on how many people from your locality wants the same.

4. THREATS

The only threat potential threat there is to BI is the strict laws of a country which restricts
BI to collect information about customers in the name of Privacy.

For Example: Facebook was accused of collecting a lot of information about its users and
then using the same to generate revenues, by selling it to the highest bidder.
 FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION

1. BI turns data into usable information. Raw data doesn’t tell us what to do in business all
on its own. BI systems allow for comprehensive analysis of data to identify important
trends that can be used to modify or implement strategic plans and to understand the
interconnections between different functions and facets of your business.

2. BI improves the visibility of core business components. BI makes it easier to see each
component part of your business, including those that are often overlooked.

3. BI improves your ROI and ability to achieve goals. BI analysis allows you to understand
how best to allocate resources to meet your stated goals.

4. BI improves your understanding of consumer behavior. BI analysis allows you to track

global, regional, and local consumption patterns to better understand current trends.

5. BI improves your marketing and sales intelligence. By keeping track of data about your
clients and customers, BI allows you to understand how they interact with your
organization at a deeper level.

6. BI improves productivity. BI makes the process of analyzing and interpreting data faster
and more efficient, giving you the power to understand business data as quickly as it
comes in, and it allows you to generate reports with the simple click of a mouse.

For decades, BI has been the province of large organizations, the types of companies that can
afford elaborate data collection centers and the computing power to analyze that data. But with the
development of affordable data analysis tools, small and medium sized businesses now have the
ability to participate in the BI revolution as well.

For years, small firms have relied on basic desktop publishing and spreadsheet programs to keep
track of their data with basic spreadsheets, but now dedicated BI platforms are affordable and
many times more powerful than a spreadsheet for analyzing and understanding business data. New
end-user BI interfaces even allow for natural language queries, responding to questions such as
“What were my 5 top-selling products last month?” by culling answers from your business’s
collected data.

Ultimately, business intelligence analysis of key data removes the guesswork from business by
quantifying solutions to complex problems rather than relying on vague impressions or gut
instincts.

This scientific revolution can make your business leaner and more efficient at every stage. After
all, when your company’s future is at stake, would you rather trust a manager’s gut feeling, or a
comprehensive set of statistical data that can analyze past trends and extrapolate likely future
results? How much are you willing to bet on a feeling vs. a statistical analysis?

The term Business Intelligence may turn out to be a fad. However, the underlying concepts, using
information technology to deliver actionable information for decision makers, are essential for
managing today’s global businesses. BI uses both structured and semi-structured data. The former
is much easier to search but the latter contains the information needed for analysis and decision
making. The development of analytical tools to integrate structured and semi-structured data can
benefit from attention by researchers. The BI market is growing, and the proportion of semi-
structured data used in daily decisions is growing.
 The top 8 suggestions that are important for successful implementation of BI:

1. Prioritize your goals,

2. Recognize your benchmark of results,

3. Prefer clean data over miscellaneous data,

4. Identify and finalize the type of analytical tool which you’ll be using,

5. Make the technology work for you and not the other way around,

6. Don’t stop at just one BI tool,

7. Empower your workforce by proper training and development of the BI

techniques,

8. Don’t give up on current used techniques, keep them handy with BI.

Sometimes, it may appear to you, ‘Is there a need for the BI system in my company?’ or ‘How can
BI tools help me make decisions beneficial for my organization?’

If an effective Business Intelligence training is used in any organization, it can improve its
decision-making processes and even processes such as tactical strategic management.

 Removing guess works

 Gone are the days when businesses were assumed to be like gambling. In those days, there were
no other options than making ‘the perfect guess.’ But now, as you know, when it comes to a
company’s future, this is no longer an appropriate method to arrive at a strategy.

With the help of Business Intelligence software, one can have accurate data, real time updates, and
means for forecasting and even to predict conditions such as ‘what will happen if.’ Thus, the need
for guessing has gone.

 Giving quicker responses to business-related queries

Another great benefit a Business Intelligence user gets is immediate answers to business-related
questions which helps in making quicker decisions based on these answers without going through
large number of pages of written reports.

In today’s customer-centric, digital-first world, many business owners and managers are
bombarded with ‘information overload’ and are urgently seeking ways to derive greater control,
understanding, and intelligence from their organisation’s data.

One of the best solutions to this growing problem is to adopt a Business Intelligence (BI) strategy,
but in reality many companies have been slow to do so – due to a lack of knowledge of exactly
what it involves, where to start, and how long it will take to see any benefit. The truth is: Business
Intelligence should be an integral part of your operation.

In particular, smart technologies are being embraced to track, inform, guide, manage and measure
Customer Experience – embedding the notion firmly into the company culture that every team and
every individual bears responsibility for putting the customer at the heart of the business.
The focus is turning away from department-specific solutions and towards enterprise-wide
deployments that help companies keep all tactical and strategic business activity tightly aligned
with current objectives.
This is why BI can be succinctly described as providing managers with “a clearer idea of how well
their companies are running, and if they are meeting goals.”
 REFERENCES

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_intelligence

2. https://www.klipfolio.com/resources/articles/what-is-business-intelligence

3. http://www.rapid-business-intelligence-success.com/swot-analysis-example.html

4. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-conclusion-of-business-intelligence-and-analytics

5. https://cloudtweaks.com/2018/10/successful-business-intelligence-implementation/