CASE 4: CATERPILLAR

TUNNELING
Individual Assignment

EMERGING IT TECHNOLOGIES

Submitted by: Siddhant Mohapatra

Roll No: MBA07227
Submitted to: Teaching Associate:
Prof. Siddharth G Majhi Mr. Subhasis Patra
1. What is business intelligence (BI)? How is BI different from business analytics (BA)?
Discuss the role of data warehousing in the context of BI.
1) Business Intelligence is a tool that facilitates decision-making. It is a critical tool that
complements troubled ERP systems in transforming raw and disparate business data into
actionable business insights. The BI platform allowed users to link disparate data sources
successfully. The BI platform had become both the go-to platform for effective decision-
making for some and a source of multiple versions of the truth for others.
When events occur is the crucial difference between business intelligence and business
analytics. Business intelligence focuses on current and historical events captured in data.
Business analytics focuses on what is most likely to occur in the future. Although both
techniques employ the same data, the outcomes' timelines differ. This distinction can be
summarised by asking the following questions:
What is going on right now, and why is it happening? (Business Intelligence)
What is likely to occur next? (Analytical Business)
By making data actionable, BI assists businesses in developing strategies for current
conditions. The data is broken down so that you can get an answer to a specific inquiry about
what's going on right now. BA develops strategies based on data insights that affect future
operations. The goal is to increase production and improve the current systems.
Data warehouses are the backbone of data storage in business intelligence. Complex inquiries
and comparisons of multiple types of data are used in business intelligence to inform
everything from daily choices to organizational-wide shifts in focus. Business intelligence
consists of three major activities to help with this: data wrangling, data storage, and data
analysis. Extract, transform, and load (ETL) technologies, which we'll go over in-depth later,
are frequently used to help with data wrangling. Data analysis is done with business
intelligence tools like Chartio. Data warehouses, which facilitate data storage via OLAP, are
the glue that holds this process together. They make data more accessible to analyze by
integrating, summarising, and transforming it.
2. What do you understand by ‘information insiders’? Explain the circumstances and
issues that led to the emergence of information insiders in CTCC.
2) Information insiders are more proficient in extracting business insights for decision
making than those who are less technology-savvy or less adaptive to new tools and processes.
CTCC's antiquated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system was causing a slew of issues,
including data inaccuracy, unequal reporting, and ill-defined processes. To deal with the
matter, a BI was called in. Jon McEwan, the CTCC's business resource manager and head of
the finance department, struggled to turn the existing BI solution into the platform of choice
for trusted information distribution throughout the company due to limited information
technology (IT) resources, an inflexible ERP infrastructure, imbalanced user adoption of BI,
and pressure to generate timely financial and performance reporting to the corporate office.
Although the BI platform allowed users to combine diverse data sources successfully, not all
business units inside the firm were ready to use it. As a result of the disparities in
participation, technical ability, and personal drive, an unbalanced reporting environment with
two users emerged. On the one side, the analytics junkies preferred slicing and dicing
interactive datasets themselves and getting their hands dirty with the latest data visualization
tools. On the other hand, canned report users who were uninterested in conducting their
analysis or going beyond the static findings presented preferred to get information through
traditional methods. As a result, for some, the BI platform had become the go-to platform for
effective decision-making, while for others, it had become a source of many versions of the
truth. The creation of "information insiders" was aided by this considerable separation.
3. Following up on the previous question, was this emergence of information insiders a
positive or a negative phenomenon? Justify your answer.
3) We may look at it from both perspectives, but I believe it is a negative trend. The first
evident explanation for this is that shortly after discussing information insiders, the case
emphasizes McEwan is having to do something to unleash the full potential. A user should be
able to make decisions based on data, and if this isn't occurring because someone isn't
computer knowledgeable, it's terrible for the firm; thus, it's an adverse event.
Furthermore, if two such groups exist, the information insiders will be occupied assisting
others, while the others will be trapped waiting for assistance from the business insiders.
Thus, It is negatively correlated with the company’s growth.
4. Based on pages 5-8 and specifically the section ‘Organisational Business Analytics
Needs at CTCC,’ identify critical issues that can be addressed using analytics, department /
function-wise. (Suggestion – may create a table mapping the different departments /
functions with their issues that can be addressed using analytics).
4)
Quality Assurance  Tough to monitor the overall state
 There were not any reporting
capabilities
 To drive the workflow, it lacked an
automated notification feature
Operations Management and Production  The production workflow was
inconsistent
 Difficult to measure the number
required for each production work
 A few staff stay idle. Therefore,
optimization of the workforce was
improper
Finance  Duplication of records
 Inter department data handling was
difficult
 Conflicting data between different
departments