Business Intelligence (BI) Evaluation Center

What Is Business Intelligence?

Business intelligence (BI) is a decision support tool used to capture, report, and analyze a subset of organizational data without affecting operational systems. Through the use of a data warehouse, data is stored and used to develop dimensional based data that is used for analysis and reporting to drive decision making within the organization.

Business Intelligence Business Drivers

• Facilitate corporate decision making initiatives
• Meet compliance and governance standards (i.e. SOX, HIPAA)
• Align business processes with information systems
• Maximize sales and customer service initiatives
• Attain return on investment (ROI) on planning initiatives (i.e., product distribution)

Business Intelligence Benefits

• the creation of a duplicate database to create queries and analysis without slowing down or affecting production data
• the use of data mining and predictive analytics tools to identify data patterns and identify trends (i.e. sales, financial, etc.)
• enhanced reporting tools to leverage data to help drive business decisions
• organization-wide collaboration on business activities

Business Intelligence Risks

• Identify the appropriate platform needed to provide accurate query performance. This includes the amount of data captured, manner and frequency of data uploads, as well as what type of server and database structure will be used.
• Underestimating the required number of users can lead to performance issues, including slow query performance.
• It is critical to identify the appropriate data and to make sure the data is cleansed. BI tools are only as good as the data used.
• Driving the project from IT and not from business units is a recipe for failure--instead start by identifying the business requirements and then developing a set of tools to meet the users' needs for those requirements.
• The concept of "build it and they will come" is likely to fail. Just building a data warehouse does not guarantee its usage or that the correct data is captured

Why Use the Business Intelligence Evaluation Center?

• Compare which products support the right mix of reporting, analytics, business performance management, data warehousing, and workflow requirements for your company.
• Evaluate predictive analytics and forecasting support for your industry.
• Shortlist vendors based on appropriate data integration capabilities and technical fit.

Most Requested Research Related to Business Intelligence (BI)

• Business Intelligence Success, Lesson Learned
   
• Business Intelligence: Its Ins and Outs
   
• Factors Inhibiting the Widespread Adoption of Business Performance Management
   
• Business Performance Management Basics: An Overview of Business Performance Management and Its Benefits to the Organization
   
• Business Intelligence Research Article Archive
   

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