Business Intelligence

Introduction
This assignment is based on business intelligence. Business intelligence is set of tools
and techniques designed for enhancing and improving operations in an organization.
There are various technologies, system, tools and techniques available in the market
used by various organizations. This assignment is related to the same which can help the
Abbey court hotel in implementing these methods to enhance and improve their
operations.

This assignment has been divided into 4 sections. In the very first section, the processes
of business and mechanisms are elaborated which are used to support decision-making.
In the second section, Information about the tools and techniques which are used in
business intelligence are explained in detail. In the third section, The demonstration of
business intelligence tools and techniques has been done in order to understand it more
efficiently. In the fourth section, Market research on the use of tools and techniques of
business intelligence has been done along with the information on how an organization
can use the BI tools in enhancing the operations.
LO1 Discuss Business process and the mechanisms used to support
business decision-making.
Business Process : A business process can be termed as set of certain rules on which
an organization runs to achieve some specific goals. In a hotel management system,
business process can be defined as the workflow, how the front-end and the back-end
work are accomplished.

Figure 1: A flow diagram to show the process flow of hotel management system.

In this image, the checking availability, check-out, services, check-in, services are the
primary process. This is the very basic things in a hotel, which requires customer
engaging and managing customer relationship.
The support process includes the tools and technologies required to check the availability
of the rooms, storing the data, tracking the records of the guest etc.

The management process looks after the things which includes if the room is as
described, cleaned or not. The services which are supposed to be delivered to the
customer are going on well or not. If not, then what are the steps that should be taken to
manage it etc (Appian. 2018)

Figure 2: An image showing the types of business process and the things in which they deal. This will help in
understanding the types of business process and their basic things.
There are three types of Business process

 Primary process
 Support process
 Management process

Primary Process – This is the very basic and the essential part of a business process
as it handles the dealings with the client directly. This process considers the entire value
chain of how the business has to work. This is also known as Operational process in
business process. It also includes on what factors are there in a business which are
supposed to be improved, the customer relationship etc.

For example – In a hotel, the basic thing is to build a good customer relationship, so that
they get satisfied with the services of the hotel.

Support Process – This is the secondary process which supports the primary process.
In this process, no dealing with customer is entertained. An environment is created in
such a way that the process involved in the primary process can run smoothly. Basically,
this is the supporting system for the primary process.

For example – In a hotel, the support system includes the tools and technologies to store
the data, to keep the track of the guests visiting the hotel etc.

Management Process – Like the support process, here also the customer dealing is not
required. This process manages the activity or the way, a business is run. Managing
certain things in a business is required. This process looks after the tasks related to the
staff members, or their queries, or the necessities to run the business.

For example – In a hotel, the management process includes the staff required for the
front-end and the back-end work, cleanliness of the room, or the things on how a customer
should be treated etc(Heflo. 2018).
M1 Differentiation between Unstructured, Semi-Structured and Structured data.
Big data can be divided into three categories which can b termed as Structured data,
Semi- Structured data and Unstructured data. The three types are explained with the help
of differentiation between them(Jeremy Ronk. 2014).

Figure 3: Image showing that big data is classified into three types of data. Unstructured, Semi- Structured and
Structured data.
Characteristics Unstructured Semi-Structured Structured
Data Data Data

Type Unorganized data, It can be termed as This is an organized

which requires tools structured data data in a very well
and technologies to which is structure which can
extract the exact unorganized. be understood very
information well.
required.
Data stored Includes multimedia With some This type of data can
and text content. properties, the semi- be stored in a
structured data can database with the
be stored in a help of columns and
relational database. rows in it.
Scalability Scaling in this type Scaling of the Scaling of the DB
of data is very easy. schema is simple in schema is
In short, it is very this type of data. somewhat difficult.
scalable.
Flexibility This type of data is This type of data has Rigorous schema
very flexible and flexible schema and which is dependent
there is no schema the schema that can on schema.
present. be tolerated.
Robustness This type of data is This is a new This type of data is
not robust technology which very robust.
isn’t widely spread.
Technology Binary data or RDF/XML Relational database
characters table

Transaction No transaction The traction Various concurrency

management management is management techniques are
present in this type technology is present and the
of data and no adapted from transaction is
concurrency is RDBMS and it is not matured.
there. matured.
Management of This type of data is This type of data is The versioning is
version versioned as a versioned over done over rows,
whole. tuples of graphs, if tables and tuples.
there is any
possibility.
 Performance of In this type of data, On nodes, which are This type of data
query the queries which anonymous, queries having a structured
can be performed can be performed. query allows
only textually, are complex joins.
possible.

Explanation with the

help of image.

Examples Audio files, web CSV, XML, JSON Databse sql, in rows
pages, and columns.
presentations, word
processing
documents,
multimedia content,
email messages,
videos etc.

Figure 4: Image showing the examples of all the three types of data form.
D1 Evaluate the drawbacks and benefits of using application software as a
business mechanism for business processing.
LO2 Compare the tools and technologies associated with business intelligence
functionalities.
P2 Compare the types of support available for business decision-making at various
levels within an organization.

Business decision-making means identifying and analyzing the strategies that can help
in understanding and implementing the strategies to support the growth of the business.

One of the most effective and used tool in a business organization is Enterprise Resource
Planning. This tool has many benefits and can help in making decisions for business.
There are many options available in this tool like it can manage the human resource
management system, asset management system, document management system,
inventory management system and document management system. Basically, this is a
tool which can help in collecting, storing and managing various information of an
organization.

Tools that are required to run a business are planning tools, record tools, employee
management tool, process tool, decision making tool, control tool etc.

As discussed above, there are three types of business process primary process,
support process and management process (q3edge. 2018).
Figure 5: Image to understand the basic structure of decision support system at various levels.

The Strategic level focuses on the terms and factors that will help in understanding and
achieving the very basic objectives in a business, that is how to increase the profit. It is
that process where management and financial analysis is done.

Strategic level system helps senior managers understand, observe and analyze the
financial or the strategic problems within an organization.

In an operational level, the decisions are taken on the basis of operations performed in
an organization. In a hotel, operations includes looking after the staff, the members,
looking on how to support the primary process.

In the Tactical level, the decisions or the support are provided on the management level.
That is how to manage the business, fulfilling the needs and the requirement of the
business to achieve certain goals.

Running a business is not easy. It is a risk which is supposed to be taken after proper
observation, analysis, study, understanding the small things etc.
M2 Justify with specific examples, the key features of business intelligence
functionalities.
Business intelligence has many features that can help in growth of the business.

Figure 6: An image telling about the details of the platform in which a business can be run.

Key features of business intelligence

 Self-Serve reporting - This feature means selecting few employee to understand

and make the report, who has knowledge of tools. This will help in less time-
consuming and it should be one of the most important features that is supposed to
be understand when looking for an effective and potential reporting system. In a
hotel, what can one do to attract the customers and make a good customer
relationship.
Figure 7: An image illustrating the self-service reporting and analytics.
 Figure 8: Giving the main reasons for implementing Self-service BI

 Fast implementation - This means understand and implementation of the idea

which is fast and efficient and can help in growth of business. With an intelligence
solution which is cloud based, for example Matillion BI, a team of people who will
be looking for the process till the whole implementation process. The things or the
requirements for a hotel which will help the managers or the staff to build a good
customer relationship.
Figure 9: An image showing the implementation process of a business in a flow. The implementation of a
business can be done after proper planning, analyzing and observing every aspect of the business.
 Figure 10: Image elaborating various steps in fast implementation process.

 In-Memory Analysis - It means the features whose functionality will be powerful

as well as easy to use. This feature helps help employees to analyse data
themselves without having any special skills and without relying on IT specialist.
 Figure 11: Imaging giving the description on In Memory analysis.

 Data warehouse - Data warehouse is one of the important features which will help
in analysing the data from one place. It is also known as “Software as a service”
as using this can supercharge the business needs.

Figure 12: An image giving the detail about the data warehouse in business intelligence.
 What if’ analysis – What if analysis means understanding the critical things for a
business and design a solution where if something unpredictable happen.

Figure 13: Image illustrating the what if analysis in Business intelligence.

Figure 14: Image showing the view of what if analysis report.
 Meta data layer – This part helps in viewing the report to the people who can
access in a simple language, so that can understand the thing clearly without any
additional support.

Figure 15: Image showing the layers in Meta Data layer.

 OLAP - OLAP stands for online analytical processing which is a technology that
is used for query and report purpose and not for transaction purpose.

Figure 16: Image showing how the OLAP works.

Figure 17: More detail information about Online analyzing problems.

  Data Visualization – Data visualization has become one of the most important
features in business intelligence where the sharing of data effectively across
different levels of business. Correct use of this feature leads to the visualization of
data in a user-friendly manner.

Figure 18: Image telling about the different processes of data visualization.

These were the key features of business Intelligence that can be implemented in hotel
business to achieve specific goals(Selecthub. 2018).

Figure 19: Image showing the illustration of business intelligence.

D2 Compare and contrast a range of information systems and technologies that
can be used to support organisations at operational, tactical and strategic levels.

Basically, there are 6 types of information system technologies that can be used in
support of operational, tactical and strategic levels in an organisation.

Figure 20: Image showing the different types of information system.

Figure 21: Another example showing information systems at various levels

 Transaction Processing Systems – This system is operated at the operational
level which is required to support the management of operations. Processes of
this system includes Updating, validation, Listing, sorting, Merging, Calculation etc.
The above mentioned are the inputs and the outputs will be Lists, Auction reports,
Detail reports. Examples of TPS are System for payments and funds transfers,
reservation system, payroll system and order processing system etc.

Figure 22: Image showing the transaction processing system.

 Management Information System – This system is used in management level
where the decisions are taken on manager level to ensure and apply the strategies
which can help in the running of business smoothly. This system is reliable on the
internal information flows, deals with the data based on present and past and not
the future. This system is used by the lower and middle level of managers.
Examples of MIS are Management reporting system, Sales management
system, Budgeting system, Personnel(HRM) system.

Figure 23: Image showing the importance and different phases of Management Information System.
 Figure 24: Flow of the MIS

 Decision Support System – This can also be said as knowledge based system
which can help in collecting knowledge about the various steps that can be taken
for the growth of the business and then implementing those ideas and knowledge.
This decision is taken on senior manager levels. This system supports the
structured and the semi structured decisions, are concerned about the future, have
analytical capacity and capacity of modeling. Examples of DSS are Logistics
systems, Group Decision support system, Financial Planning system,
Computer supported Co-operative work.

Figure 25: Image showing the decision support system

 Figure 26: Various features of a decision support system.

 Executive Information System – This system is executed in the strategic level

operation in which the executives and the senior managers plans, observes and
analyses various steps that are supposed to be taken for the growth of the
business. This includes the organization and presenting the data from both the
internal and external resources. Example of this system includes concern with
the easy use future prediction about the organization, high flexibility level,
effective orientation, usability on the senior managerial levels (Chris-kimble.
2018)
 Figure 27: Image showing different steps in an executive information system.

These were the steps that were taken to understand and implement the information
system technologies in various levels of business in an organization.
Figure 28: Image giving the detail description on TPS, MIS, EIS, DSS and the levels on which they are used or
implemented. This image has elaborated the details in a brief and better manner.
LO3 Demonstrate the use of business intelligence tools and technologies

P3 Determine, with examples, what business intelligence is and the tools and
techniques associated with it
As the name suggests, business intelligence is the intelligent system used in organization
to analyze, observe and take various steps that can help in growth of the organization.
There are various tools and techniques which are used at different levels by executives,
managers, senior managers to understand the needs and requirements of the business
and implementation of the strategies accordingly.

The benefits and uses of this system is that it helps in understanding the business needs,
analysing and observing the data, winning the competition from rivals, efficiency of the
operation performed in an organization increases and many other benefits.

Various tools are available in market to support Business Intelligence and make the work
easy for the members of the organization easy.

 icCube - This is one of the business tool which can be implemented and
embedded into the systems and can help the members to do the work easily by
taking the advantages of the features available in this tool.
 Actuate business Intelligence and reporting tools ( BIRT) - This is open-
source, flexible, user- friendly tools which supports Java reporting styles. It can
help to read and publish report in any format whether in relational database or to
an XML file or in a text file.
 DOMO- This tools helps in understanding and viewing the detailed and analyzed
report of whatever happening in the organization.
 BOARD management intelligence toolkit - This tool is powerful tool which can
be used in an organization as it helps in performing all the tasks in one software.
That means can merge the BI and the CPM functionalities. Planning, analysis,
budgeting, dash boarding, multi-layer analysis, all can be done at one place.
  Clear Analytics - This is one of the tool which is easy to use and learn. This tool
is in the excel format and employees having a basic knowledge of excel can use
this tool and work on it. The analyzing, observing, every part can be represented
in an excel format.

 Jaspersoft, Insightsquared, IBM congnos intelligence, GoodData, Ducen are

also the names of the business tools that are available in the market and are very
helpful to support Business Intelligence in an organization. These tools helps in
analyzing, understanding the needs and requirements and implementation them,
or taking the decision regarding the business in a helpful manner by representing
the data in excel, report, XML or other formats(BigDataMadeSimple. 2018) .

Techniques used in Business Intelligence

 Self-Serve reporting - This feature means selecting few employee to understand

and make the report, who has knowledge of tools. This will help in less time-
consuming and it should be one of the most important features that is supposed to
be understand when looking for an effective and potential reporting system. In a
hotel, what can one do to attract the customers and make a good customer
relationship.

 In-Memory Analysis - It means the features whose functionality will be powerful

as well as easy to use. This feature helps help employees to analyse data
themselves without having any special skills and without relying on IT specialist.

 Data Visualization – Data visualization has become one of the most important
features in business intelligence where the sharing of data effectively across
different levels of business. Correct use of this feature leads to the visualization of
data in a user-friendly manner.

 OLAP - OLAP stands for online analytical processing which is a technology that
is used for query and report purpose and not for transaction purpose.
Figure 29: Image defining the cycle of Business Intelligence and understanding various techniques used to
implement ideas.
Figure 30: Image illustrating the process of Business Intelligence.
LO4 Discuss the impact of business intelligence tools and technologies for
effective decision-making purposes and the legal/regulatory context in which they
are used

P5 Discuss how business intelligence tools can contribute to effective decision-

making.
Business intelligence tools are designed in such a way that it can help in effective decision
making. These tools are effective in the below mentioned ways.

 Collecting information using dashboards and reports – The tools used for
business intelligence helps in collecting and analyze the data at one place.
 Designing and analysing using interactive analysis and data mining – The
tools helps in interactive and analysed data formation which will help in applying
the strategies for the business growth.
 Selecting and implementing using ad hoc query, what-if and forecasting –
Analysing these aspects for a business with the help of the tools and implementing
them.
 Evaluating using dashboards and reports, separate components that are
hardly related, increase the coherency between the tools are the major points
which can be termed as the benefits of using the business intelligence tools to
effective decision-making.
Figure 31: Image explaining the steps in effective decision making.
P6 Explore the legal issues involved in the secure exploitation
Legal issues involved in secure exploitation for an hotel can be

 Privacy and Security – Privacy and security is a major things which should be
taken care of. For example – In a hotel, the data of the guest or the name should
kept confidential so that no one can take the wrong advantage of the data.
 Electronic Transaction – Today everything is online and so does the transaction.
People prefer swiping cards instead of using cash. So, the transaction should be
safe, and the details entered while transacting should be kept confidential in order
to avoid any kind of issues.
 Illegal and unethical behaviour - In a hotel management, it is very important to
try, build and maintain a good customer relationship. In order to achieve this,
behaviour od the staff members should be legal and ethical.

Figure 32: Image showing legal issues for secure exploitation.

M4 Conduct research to identify specific examples of the organisations that have
used business intelligence tools to enhance and improve operations.
Business intelligence has been designed for the organisations to implement the ideas for
improving the operation in the company. Name of the companies that have used business
Intelligence tools to improve and enhance the operations are:

 Looker
 Infragistics
 Qlik
 SAP
 Microsoft
 IBM
 Infor
 GoodData
 iDashboards
 Chartio
 Attivio
 Oracle business intelligence
 Sisense
 Tableau Software
 Yellowfin
 Thoughtspot
 Pentaho

These are companies that have implemented business intelligence tools to improve
operations.
D4 Evaluate how organisations could use business intelligence to extend their
target audience and make them more competitive within the market, taking security
legislation into consideration.
There are various steps, tools and techniques of business intelligence which are used by
various organisations to implement better ideas in order to achieve the goals. Suppose
for the hotel, Companies can collect the data from the server of all the people who are
trying search for a hotel in order to spend vacations or any other reasons. After collecting
the data, they can extract the information of the people who haven’t booked any hotel yet
and try and connect to them in order to attract them to visit the hotel. Once they visit,
member of the hotel can try and build a good customer relationship which will leave a
good impact on the customer and the customer will be bound to visit and book the hotel.
These are the steps that can be taken to run the business of the hotel, but to implement
these things, certain decisions are supposed to be made by the junior and senior
authorities of the hotel at their level. This is the very important aspect of the business.

The decisions are also supposed to be taken by considering the security concerns as well
which will make the data of the guest more secure and confidential.

Figure 33: Image about the BI trends of 2018

Conclusion

As per the opportunity given to complete the project on Business Intelligence, I conclude
that I have taken the responsibility and has completed the work effectively. To complete
this assignment, use of Ms-excel, Google research has been done to implement various
tasks given.

The result of completing this assignment is gaining the knowledge of business process
and the support system used, knowledge about Business Intelligence along with the tools
and techniques used, detail information has helped to gain a lot of knowledge. To
implement the practical task of the assignment given. These tools and technologies are
being used in market by various companies to enhance their operations. Use of these
tools and techniques are recommended as these helps a lot in implementing the decisions
in effective way.
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