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What are some applications of Business Intelligence for an enterprise?
I know that knowledge management, reporting, and analytics are some. What are some others?
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3 Answers
I think that number one application that you didn't mention is a possibility to build simple, effective business information dashboards. In that way, BI system first collects data from various sources around company's data and those data are integrated and presented to managers, decision makers and CEOs.
In the end, if BI by the way of dashboards helps company to make better decisions, that will be project success and fulfillment of BI promise.
Mike, BI takes on many different flavors but we need to be careful we don't define applications from an IT standpoint. You could spend millions and have the best BI solution out there but if it doesn't answer the business needs or ultimately help the business become more competitive, successful, etc the IT application has failed. Having said that the maturity of the company in using data will determine to some degree the technology solutions the business is ready to use. I break down BI into "reporting" and "analytics". Reporting begins at standard static operational reports (what's happening a given point in time), customized templates that allow a user to manage from a different perspective; to dashboards that monitor current key metrics or statuses and may inlude some simple "what if" types of analtysis capabilities. And finally, an ad hoc reporting capability.
Analytics starts using more sophisticated mathematics/statistics to achieve data mining (correlations between variousl data elements) to predictive models that use current data to predict behavior in the future.
The key with any BI initiative is to start where the readiness of the company is and gradually move from there. Overwhelming people with fancy analtyics will almost certainly derail future success or at best delay it unnecessarily if they are not ready for it.
I would do a maturity readiness survey to determine capailities of your business users in using data and from there define what you ultimately want them to accomplish with using the data. Sometimes it will take a complete cultural shift in the business when using data to manage outcomes.
So, start with applications that people will understand. Give them some successes early and build on the process from there. Your business will define what the direction of what you want to accomplish. The key is to remember that BI is a business tool undergirded by technology not an IT initiative they will hand to business without any input.
BI has a good application in Enterprise Decision Making. EDM utilizes BI infrastructure to automate tactical decisions on frontlines. There is very good reference book on this subject www.smartenoughsystems.com
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