A Presentation on

Business Intelligence
Topics
 Introductions
 Characteristics of a Business Intelligence Application
 Demonstration
 Design Issues
 What is
Business Intelligence?

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What is Business Intelligence?
According to vendors:

 a segment of information technology that comprises

software systems that enable finding, storing,
organising and supplying data; when incorporated
into an information system, it enables company to
utilise real-time analysis of information

Information Technology Toolbox

www.ITToolbox.com

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What is Business Intelligence?
 software that enables business users to see and use
large amounts of complex data (e.g.
multidimensional analysis, query tools, data mining
tools)

SDG Computing
www.sdgcomputing.com

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What is Business Intelligence?
 a category of applications and technologies for
gathering, storing, analysing, reporting on and
providing access to data to help enterprise users
make better business decisions

Cognos (www.cognos.com)

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What is Business Intelligence?
 markets business performance software, comprised
of three subcategories that includes ad hoc query
and analysis, reporting/OLAP, executive
information systems and analytical applications

Brio (www.brio.com)

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What is Business Intelligence?
 a set of concepts and methods to improve business
decision making by using fact-based support
systems (e.g. briefing books and executive
information systems in the 1990s)

Gartner Group
www.gartner.com

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What is Business Intelligence?
 BI lets organisations access, analyse, and share
information internally with employees and
externally with customers, suppliers, and partners
Business Objects
www.businessobjects.com

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What is Business Intelligence?
 BI helps corporations transform their operational
data into actionable information; helps meet query
reporting and advanced analytical needs
MicroStrategy
www.microstrategy.com

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What is Business Intelligence?
 BI is a performance management
framework, an ongoing cycle by which
companies set their goals, analyze their
progress, gain insight, take action, measure
their success, and start all over again
 It helps decision makers make better
decisions faster at both strategic and
operating levels
Vitt, Luckevich and Misner (2002)
Microsoft Corporation

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What is Business Intelligence?
According to non-vendors:

 BI is processed information of interest

to management about the present and
future environment in which business is
operating

Greene (1966)

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What is Business Intelligence?
 Processed information vs. data
 data - raw material that is composed of facts
 intelligence information - information digested,
analysed, and interpreted for the purpose of decision
making
 Management has crucial role in BI, determines
 what will be in the domain of BI
 what information if of interest or relevant to its decision
 Company’s environment
 Present environment (mostly for tactical intelligence)
 Future environment (mostly for strategic intelligence)

Greene (1966) (cont)

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What is Business Intelligence?
 Operational Intelligence
 Affects operational levels of organisation on daily,
weekly, monthly basis
 Tactical Intelligence
 Affects a part of organisation for a limited time (i.e.,
coming year) into the future
 Strategic Intelligence
 Affects the entire organisation, or a major part of it for a
long period of time (i.e., 2 - 5 years and beyond)
 PURPOSE OF BI
 Shift from reliance on short-term tactical decisions to
better use of strategic intelligence in the decision-making
process
Greene (1966) (cont)

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What is Business Intelligence?
 BI results from full appraisal of
information, past actions, and options; once
sown, it tends to propagate itself across an
organisation

Liautuad and Hammond (2000)

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What is Business Intelligence?
 BI refers to the ability to understand the
interrelationships of presented facts – whether they
involve data, information and/or knowledge – in
such a way to guide action toward one or more
desired goals

Thierauf (2001)

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What is Business Intelligence?
 Relationship of intelligence to various levels
of summarisation
 Data – unstructured data
 Information – structured data useful for analysis
 Knowledge - obtained from experts based on
actual experience
 Intelligence – keen insight into understanding
important relationships
Thierauf (2001)

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What is Business Intelligence?
 BI centers on computerised methods and processes
to improve strategic, tactical and operational
decisions using data, information, and knowledge
from multiple sources as well as applying
experience and assumptions to develop an accurate
understanding of the dynamic surrounding decision
making
Thierauf (2001) (cont)

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 What is a
Business Intelligence System?

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What is Business Intelligence System?
 BIS is an information system that provides BI to
business decision makers at different levels of
organisation (operational, tactical, strategic levels)

 BIS is an information system that turns selected

data, information, and/or knowledge into desired
intelligence for business gain (Thierauf, 2001)

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 What is the role of
Business Intelligence System?

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Role of BIS
 Provide decision makers with the ability to
understand (i.e., the intelligence to gain insights
into) the relationships of presented facts in the form
of data, information, and knowledge in order to
guide action toward a desired actionable goal
(Thierauf, 2001)

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Role of BIS
 Provide decision makers with timely data,
information and knowledge for problem solving,
and problem finding
 Past : Decision making as Problem Solving activity
 Reactive approach –use of appropriate management
technologies to resolve current problems as they arise
 Current: Business intelligence activity as problem
solving, as well as problem finding
 Proactive, preventive approach – anticipating future
company problems; looking for future opportunities

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How did Business Intelligence
Systems evolve?

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 Evolution of BIS
Computer-based Support Systems technologies
 1950s Transaction Processing Systems (TPS)
 1960s Management Information Systems (MIS)
 1970s Office Automation Systems
Decision Support Systems (DSS)
 1980s DSS Expanded
Commercial applications of Expert Systems
Executive Information Systems (EIS)
 1990s Group Support Systems
Neural Computing
Integrated, hybrid computer systems

Turban and Aronson (2001)

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 Attributes of Computer-based Support Systems
(Turban and Aronson, 2001)

Dimension Applications

TPS Payroll, inventory, record keeping,

production and sales information
MIS Production control, sales forecasting,
monitoring
DSS Long-range strategic planning, complex
integrated problem areas
ES Diagnosis, strategic planning, internal control
planning, maintenance strategies, narrow
domain
EIS Support to top management, decision,
environmental
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 Attributes of Computer-based Support Systems
(Turban and Aronson, 2001)

Dimension Focus
TPS Data transactions

MIS Information

DSS Decisions, flexibility, user-friendliness

ES Inferencing, transfer of expertise

EIS Tracking, control “drill down”

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 Attributes of Computer-based Support Systems
(Turban and Aronson, 2001)

Dimension Decision Capabilities

TPS No decision, or simple decision models

MIS Structured routine problems using conventional

operations research tools
DSS Semi-structured problems, integrated operations
research models, bled of judgment and structured
support capabilities
ES The system makes complex decisions,
unstructured; use of rules (heuristics)
EIS None

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 Attributes of Computer-based Support Systems
(Turban and Aronson, 2001)

Dimension Highest Organisation Level served

TPS Sub-managerial, low management

MIS Middle management

DSS Top management

ES Top management and specialists

EIS Senior executives

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More BIS technologies
 1990s Data warehouses
 Enable decision makers to “pull” BI from a large
centralised repository
 created to support the information requirements of an
organisation’s decision makers.
 1990s OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) systems
 Enable decision makers to build and work with analytical
models easily and view the output in multiple dimensions
 1990s Knowledge Management Systems (KMS)
 Go beyond relationships found in information allowing
decision makers to extract patterns, trends, correlations
that underlie the interworkings of a company currently
and over time

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Business Intelligence
 The term Business Intelligence (BI) is relatively new but
the it is synonymous with a range of applications that have
been around for years;
– Decision support systems
– Executive Information Systems
– On-line Analytical Processing (E.F Codd early 90’s) or
multi-dimensional modelling
 It is the conversion of data into information in such a way
that the business is able to analyse the information to gain
insight and take action
The BI Cycle

INSIGHT

ANALYSIS

ACTION
Business
Intelligence

MEASUREMENT

Source: Business Intelligence, Elizabeth Vitt

BI Questions
 What happened?
– What were our total sales this month?
 What’s happening?
– Are our sales going up or down, trend analysis
 Why?
– Why have sales gone down?
 What will happen?
– Forecasting & What If Analysis
 What do I want to happen?
– Planning & Targets

Source: Bill Baker, Microsoft

Where is Business Intelligence applied?

Operational Efficiency Customer Interaction

 ERP Reporting  Sales Analysis

 KPI Tracking  Sales Forecasting
 Product Profitability  Segmentation
 Risk Management  Cross-selling
 Balanced Scorecard  CRM Analytics
 Activity Based Costing  Campaign Planning
 Global Sourcing  Customer Profitability
 Logistics
OLTP v OLAP
 OLTP systems model processes
 OLAP focuses on output and user reporting and analysis
requirements
– Data warehouses support business decisions by
collecting, consolidating, and organizing data for
reporting and analysis with tools such as online
analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining.
(Microsoft)
 OLAP still requires a very formal approach
Business Intelligence Software
 Integration of
– OLAP multi-dimensional technology
– Relational database technology
– Web technology
 Scalability for warehousing
 Flexibility, performance and business views
 Web deployment
Major BI\OLAP Vendors
 Oracle 9i OLAP
 SAP BW
 Microsoft SQL Server 2000 & Analysis Services
 Hyperion Essbase\IBM
 Microstrategy
 Cognos
 Business Objects
State of BI at the present time
 Robust, scaleable, web deployable BI technologies are
available
 Problems are likely to lie in data complexity, process and
people
 Successful implementation demands very close working
between the business and the system providers
 Choosing products is as hard as ever
– There’s no such thing as a green field site (OLAP, Query &
Reporting, RDBMS, ETL, Data Mining)
– ERP vendors are offering BI
The BI market has been turned upside
down in the last 4 years
 Microsoft has entered the market with dramatic impact
 Oracle has lost momentum
 The products best able to work with Microsoft’s platform
were unknown 4 years ago
BI in Action
How Many Matches?
How Many Matches Now?
 Concept of a Cube or Product – Chocolate
Date – May 2003
Pivot Table Region – South East
Measure – Sales

Date
Region

Product

How much Chocolate did we sell in the South East in May 2003?
 Front-End Tools

Client Client
Web Web
Server Server

SQL MDX
SQL Server 2000

Relational Analysis
Database Services

DTS

Text Excel SQL

Informix Access Sybase Oracle
Server
Design Considerations
Things to get right at design stage
 Scope of project
– Better to phase project than big bang

 Business unit buy-in

– Ownership within the BU and clear goals

 User Focus
– Management of user expectations becomes very important
Things to get right at design stage
 Source data
– Do we have access?
– Often data in disparate sources and not always accessible
– Is it at the same level
– Budget data may be formulated at a higher summary level than
actual data is sourced at
– Process
– How and when does the data get into the Warehouse?
– What level of data cleansing & transformation will be required
– Who is responsible?
Things to get right at design stage
 Source data
– Are we able to match outputs to inputs
– Merging and matching of data sources
– Requirement for company wide data standards and definitions
– Are there common keys?
– Hierarchy movements over time
– the need to restate or retain historic view?
– Timeliness of data
– Data volumes
– Handling of missing values and relationships
Things to get right at design stage
 Can you deliver the user/business requirements with the
tools/skills available
– Some things that look easy are sometimes not
– Dimension changes
– Things that do not seem important to the developer are
important to the business user
– Format
– Performance
– Some things will be slow because they are slow
– Manage expectations
– Product limitations
Things to get right at design stage
 Reporting vs Analysis
– They may seem the same but they are not
– Different tools
– Different approach
– Different audience
BI Design Parameters
 Cubes
– Number of cubes – possibly defined by business functions
or security
– Number of dimensions per cube, shared or private
– Partitions relating to data volumes and update speeds (cube
processing times)
– Virtual cubes – cross functional analysis
– Data storage options
BI Design Parameters
 Dimensions
– Types of hierarchies - multiple, ragged, parent\child,
balanced\unbalanced
– Size, number of members
– Member properties and how these could be used (attributes)
– Number of levels, children within each level
– Hierarchy changes over time
– Reporting views, scenarios
BI Design Parameters
 Time Dimension
– Alternative time hierarchies – calendar, financial
– 13 period year – weeks to period
– Number of levels
BI Design Parameters
 Timeliness of Data
– Real-time
– Next day
– Weekly reviews (possible weekend to process)
– Monthly reviews (month end processing)
BI Design Parameters
 Measures
– Methods of aggregation
– Data entering cubes at differing levels required for
comparisons
– Custom rollups
– Non additive data
– Precision, format
BI Design Parameters
 Calculated Measures
– Time series calculations
– SQL vs OLAP calculations (pre cube build vs post cube
build)
– Calculated cells
– Nature of equations required to derive the calculated
measures
– Currency exchange rates
– Distributed processing opportunities (server calcs vs client
side calcs)
– Application of MDX
BI Design Parameters
 Write-Back requirements
– Allocations\break back requirements, level of data entry
– Audit log
– Validation
BI Design Parameters
 Output requirements
– User report definitions – format, layout, precision
– Types of adhoc analysis
– Actions
– Requirements for printed output
– Quantitative vs Qualitative data output
– Browser\Office delivery
– OLAP database drill-through to SQL Server
– Number of users
– Report maintainability
– Security
BI Design Parameters
 Security
– Cube
– Dimension
– Cell level
To consider when building BI
applications..
 Users can fail to realise how much info they requested –
leads to poor perceived performance
 Complexity due to a large number of dimensions – users
don’t understand the model/numbers
 Hard to test because they are conceptually complex
 Performance vs storage – consider
MOLAP/HOLAP/ROLAP, on-the fly versus pre-aggregated
data
There is a strong case for a BI
strategy
 BI can drive significant value
 It is an agile technology
– crosses functional boundaries
– crosses organisational boundaries
– Implementation can involve many stakeholders
 Tactical BI applications may deliver significant value (and
prove BI’s worth) …
 In a post boom business climate, BI offers a pragmatic
way of delivering high return in the short term without
major upheaval