According to the Asghar et al. (2009), Business Intelligence (BI) is divided into two main parts: (a) BI dimension and (b) BI process. Knowledge, functionality, technology, business and organisation are categorised under BI dimension. The performance of data sources, data warehousing, ETL, OLAPS and other related tools are categorised under BI process. Basically, dimensions and processes are interrelated to form a complete life cycle of BI system development.
Knowledge
Knowledge is a prime thing for business process. It is also a requisite for creating an innovative idea about new products and technologies, volume of scales, making new clients and keeping relations with clients. The main sources of knowledge in an organisation are clients, suppliers, information systems, news, internal and external data, website, commercial information, inner credentials, media press, workers and stakeholders. On the other hand, knowledge has been categorised as a practical, expressive, semantic, periodic, unambiguous and implicit. So it can be said that knowledge plays a vital role in any organisation to fulfil the demand of BI (Olszak and Ziemba, 2003; Simmers, 2004).
Functionality
Olszak and Ziemba (2003) signify that the BI benchmark must be taken in consideration to analyse all the benefits that will be generated in an organisation. They are:
Strategic planning for development of an organisation, relationship between enterprise strategy, mission, goals and tasks, identifying problems to be undertaken and providing information for different activities involved in an organisation.
Customer relationship improvement
- Analysis of products and services
- Analysis of efficient and effective procedures for operation
- Analysis of transaction flow (Cash inflow and outflow)
Technology
According to Olszak and Ziemba (2003), business intelligence includes the knowledge creation, data source and information technology. To achieve this, today there are different platforms which integrate data sources, advanced databases and analysis server with user friendly front-end application. This has made easy for all level of the business staff to analyse the business performance. Some of the business solutions are Oracle databases, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Server Business Intelligence Studio, Oracle Analytical work manager, Oracle BIEE ( Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition), NCR teradata warehouse, Hyperion, SAS, Cognos, Business Objects, Open source project Pentaho and MS Miner. To choose proper business solution is a difficult task. It can be chosen on the basis of function, architecture design, compatibility and business operation and requirement (Asghar et al., 2009).
Business
Simmers (2004) identifies that the increasing practices of business is directly proportional to high demand of information. These demands are fulfilled by BI through various internal and external surroundings.
Organisation
It is very important to know about the organisation and its goals before going through the BI solution. The present and future demands for knowledge in an enterprise are based on these goals (Olszak and Ziemba, 2003).
References:
1) Asghar, S., Fong, S., Hussain, T. (2009). Business Intelligence Modeling: A Case Study of Disaster Management Organization in Pakistan. Fourth International Conference on Computer Sciences and Convergence Information Technology. pp. 673-679.
2) Olszak, C. M. and Ziemba, E. (2003).Business Intelligence as a Key to Management of an Enterprise. Informing Science. pp. 855-863.
3) Simmers, C. A. (2004). A Stakeholder Model of Business Intelligence. Proceedings of the 37th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. pp. 1-9.
Originally posted on Data Science Central