BI Applications and Data Analysis

We have discussed some of the tools that are used to analyze performance and internal workings of an organization. Now we are going to look at some tools designed to not only analyze data but also store it. These tools are normally used to store large amounts of data, some of them also transform data for easier reading.

The fist application or tool we will discuss is the Data Mining tool. Data Mining is essentially the principle of sorting through massive amounts of data and selecting the relevant information. Traditionally this has been done by analysts, who extracted the useful or relevant information from all recorded data. Needless to say with this new and more technologically advanced era the volume of data has increased substantially, and continues to do so. This increase calls for the use of computer based approaches.

Data set have grown not only in size but also in complexity, this has caused a much needed shift from hands on data analysis to automated data analysis that uses more complex or sophisticated tools. Thankfully modern technologies have made the task of data sorting and analysis nearly effortless.

Data mining also identifies trends in the information that go beyond simple analysis. This gives users the ability to identify key attributes of an organization. This identification aids in targeting opportunities.

Next we will touch on Data Warehouses. A Data Warehouse is the main repository an organizations historical data. This application contains the raw material for management’s decisions support system. A crucial factor leading to the use of a Data Warehouse is that data analysts can perform complex queries and analysis, like data mining, on the information without slowing the organization’s operating systems.

An influential practitioner named Bill Inmon formally defined the Data Warehouse in these terms;

Subject-Oriented: The data in the database is organized so that all the data elements relating to the same real-world event or object are linked together.

Time-Variant:  The changes to the data in the database are tracked and recorded so that reports can be produced showing changes over time.

Non-Volatile:  Data in the database is never over-written or deleted - once committed, the data is static, read-only, but retained for future reporting.

And finally integrated,

The database contains data from most or all of an organization's operational applications, and that this data is made consistent.

Business Intelligence Applications involving human aspect of business

Lastly we will look into the tools or applications that pertain to the human side of an organization’s operations. This usually concerns the customer relationships and resources. First we will delve into the Customer Relationship Management application.

This application is known as the practice of intelligently finding, marketing to, selling to, and servicing customers. The term is broadly used to cover concepts used by companies, organizations, and public institutions to manage their relationships with customers and stakeholders. There are three aspects of Customer Relationship Management tools. These aspects are; operational- automating customer processes that offer support to sales or service, collaborative- the application communicates with customers without the company’s sales or service representative, and analytical- analyzes customer information for various purposes.

Customer Relationship Management is a comprehensive approach to an organization’s philosophy in dealing with its customers. This can include policies and procedures as well as customer service, employee training, marketing, and systems and information management.

Now we will take a quick look at marketing tools as they to deal with the human side of an organization. First let us define marketing, it is a societal process needed to discern customer desires and expectations. By using the marketing applications provided by Business Intelligence systems organization can focus on products or services that apply to those wants or expectations. Marketing is vital to business growth no matter what product or service an organization works with. These applications also track marketing trends, giving the user a good impression of what is popular in their area among organizations of a similar nature.

Finally we will get a feel for what Human Resource applications deal with. Human resource concerns the combination of administrative personnel functions with employee performance as well as employee relations and resource planning. This field deals closely with the psychology within the industrial or organizational environment. The main goals of this application are to maximinze the return on investment from the business’s human capital and minimize financial risk.

List of Additional Business Intelligence Applications

• Associative Query Logic
• Score carding,
• Performance Measurement
• Business Planning
• Business Process Re-engineering
• User/End-user Query and Reporting
• Enterprise Management systems
• Executive Information Systems
• Finance and Budgeting tools
• Decision Support Systems
• Document warehouses
• Document Management
• Knowledge Management
• Mapping
• Information visualization
• Dashboarding
• Management Information Systems
• Geographic Information Systems
• Trend Analysis
• Software as a service
• Business Intelligence offerings (On Demand)
• Online analytical processing (OLAP)
• Statistics and Technical Data Analysis
• Web Mining
• Text mining
• Systems intelligence.

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