BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

I. INTRODUCTION ABOUT BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

- Business intelligence (BI) is a term used by hardware and software vendors and
information technology consultants to describe the infrastructure for warehousing,
integrating, reporting, and analyzing data that come from the business environment,
including big data.
II. SUMMARIZE THEORY/METHODS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
1. How Business Intelligence works.
- Gather data: BI tools seek out data from various sources—your sales figures,
customer feedback, market trends, and operational stats.
- Integrate data: In this step, BI tools take center stage by seamlessly merging data
from disparate sources into a unified system. They're adept at harmonizing information
from various departments and IT systems, creating a comprehensive and cohesive
view. This integration capability is crucial, as it ensures all relevant data is pooled
together, allowing for a holistic analysis that reflects the full spectrum of the business's
operations.
- Manage data: Here, BI tools play a critical role in ensuring data quality and
integrity. They automate the process of cleaning and sorting data, removing
inaccuracies or duplications that can skew analysis results. These tools also implement
robust security measures to safeguard sensitive information.
- Analyze data: This is where data starts to tell its story. Through rigorous analysis,
BI tools examine the intricacies and interactions within your data, identifying patterns,
trends, and anomalies.
- Visualize data: Visualization is about presenting the data in a format that is easy to
understand, often as charts, graphs, or dashboards. This helps to communicate the data
analysis findings clearly and effectively.
- Take action: Whether it's pivoting your marketing strategy, streamlining your supply
chain, or enhancing customer experiences, BI arms you with the intelligence to make
informed moves that propel your business forward.
2. The Business Intelligence environment.
- There are six elements in this business intelligence environment:
+ Data from the business environment: Businesses must deal with both structured
and unstructured data from many different sources, including big data. The data need
to be integrated and organized so that they can be analyzed and used by human
decision makers.
+ Business intelligence infrastructure: The underlying foundation of business
intelligence is a powerful database system that captures all the relevant data to operate
the business. The data may be stored in transactional databases or combined and
integrated into an enterprise data warehouse or series of interrelated data marts.
+ Business analytics toolset: used to analyze data and produce reports, respond to
questions posed by managers, and track the progress of the business using key
indicators of performance.
+ Managerial users and methods: Business intelligence hardware and software are
only as intelligent as the human beings who use them. Managers impose order on the
analysis of data using a variety of managerial methods that define strategic business
goals and specify how progress will be measured. These include business performance
management and balanced scorecard approaches focusing on key performance
indicators and industry strategic analyses focusing on changes in the general business
environment, with special attention to competitors. Without strong senior management
oversight, business analytics can produce a great deal of information, reports, and
online screens that focus on the wrong matters and divert attention from the real
issues.
+ Delivery platform—MIS, DSS, ESS: The results from business intelligence and
analytics are delivered to managers and employees in a variety of ways, depending on
what they need to know to perform their jobs. MIS, DSS, and ESS deliver information
and knowledge to different people and levels in the firm—operational employees,
middle managers, and senior executives. In the past, these systems could not share data
and operated as independent systems. Today, one suite of hardware and software tools
in the form of a business intelligence and analytics package is able to integrate all this
information and bring it to managers’ desktops or
mobile platforms.
+ User interface: Business people often learn quicker from a visual representation of
data than from a dry report with columns and rows of information. Today’s business
analytics software suites feature data visualization tools, such as rich graphs, charts,
dashboards, and maps. They also are able to deliver reports on mobile phones and
tablets as well as on the firm’s web portal.
3. Business Intelligence benefits.
- Business Intelligence can make your systems work better:
+ Improved efficiency: BI converts the results of data analysis into data visualizations
and other digestible formats that make it easier to make business strategy decisions.
Plus, automating this step can save endless hours of sifting through data and minimize
the chances of human error.
+ Improved decision-making: BI is data-driven, which helps to ensure you're making
sound decisions. For example, business intelligence tools can generate dashboards and
reports based on sales data that communicate what products are selling poorly and
should either be discontinued or modified.
+ Improved employee impact: BI makes data analysis more accessible, freeing up
time that IT teams and data analysts would have spent responding to user requests.
With BI, employees are empowered to conduct their own analyses and pull insights
from them.
+ Improved customer satisfaction: Data-driven decisions make it far easier to meet
your customers' needs.
4. Business Intelligence and Analytics Capabilities
Business intelligence and analytics promise to deliver correct, nearly real-time
information to decision makers, and the analytic tools help them quickly understand
the information and take action. There are six analytic functionalities that BI systems
deliver to achieve these ends:
- Predictive Analytics:
+ Use statistical analysis, data mining techniques, historical data, and assumptions
about future conditions to predict future trends and behavior patterns.
+ Are being incorporated into numerous business intelligence applications for sales,
marketing, finance, fraud detection, and healthcare.
 Credit scoring is used throughout the financial services industry. When you
apply for a new credit card, scoring models process your credit history, loan
application, and purchase data to determine your likelihood of making future
credit payments on time.
 Many companies employ predictive analytics to predict response to direct
marketing campaigns. They are able to lower their marketing and sales costs by
focusing their resources on customers who have been identified as more
promising.
- Big data Analytics:
+ Big data: Massive datasets collected from social media, online and in-store customer
data, and so on
+ Help create real-time, personalized shopping experiences for major online retailers
+ In the public sector, big data analytics have been driving the movement toward
“smart cities,” which make intensive use of digital technology to make better decisions
about running cities and serving their residents.
 Public record
 Sensors, location data from mobile phones, and targeted smartphone apps.
 Ability to evaluate effect of one service change on the system
- Operational Intelligence and Analytics:
+ Many decisions deal with how to run the business of these cities on a day-to-day
basis. These are largely operational decisions, and this type of business activity
monitoring is called operational intelligence.
+ The Internet of Things is creating huge streams of data from web activities,
smartphones, sensors, gauges, and monitoring devices that can be used for operational
intelligence about activities inside and outside the organization.
+ Software for operational intelligence and analytics enables organizations to analyze
these streams of big data as they are generated in real time.
- Location Analytics and Geographic Information Systems:
+ Decisions are also based on location data.
+ BI analytics include location analytics, the ability to gain business insight from the
location (geographic) component of data, including location data from mobile phones,
output from sensors or scanning devices, and data from maps.
+ Geographic information systems (GIS): provide tools to help decision makers
visualize problems that benefit from mapping
5. Business Intelligence methods.
- Data Mining: Leveraging databases, statistics, and machine learning, data mining
identifies patterns within vast datasets. Uncovering hidden insights allows businesses
to make proactive decisions based on data-driven predictions.
- Reporting: Providing stakeholders with relevant information empowers them to
draw conclusions and make informed decisions. Reports present key findings, trends,
and metrics in a concise and accessible manner.
- Performance Metrics and Benchmarking: Comparing current performance data
against past metrics helps assess progress and measure success. Custom dashboards
provide visual performance representations, enabling quick identification of areas
requiring improvement.
- Descriptive Analytics: This process involves analyzing preliminary data to
understand what has happened in the past. It uncovers patterns, correlations, and
trends, providing a foundation for further analysis and decision-making.
- Querying: Business intelligence tools enable users to retrieve specific data sets by
posing data-specific queries. This allows for targeted analysis and exploration of key
insights.
- Statistical Analysis: Building upon the findings of descriptive analytics, statistical
analysis delves deeper into patterns and provides insights into how and why certain
trends have occurred. Statistical techniques offer a deeper understanding of the
underlying factors driving business performance.
- Data Visualization: Transforming data analysis into visual representations, such as
charts, graphs, and histograms, enhances comprehension and accessibility. Visualizing
complex data enables stakeholders to quickly grasp insights and make data-driven
decisions.
- Visual Analysis: The power of visual storytelling can be harnessed to effectively
convey insights on the fly. By presenting data compellingly and engagingly, visual
analysis keeps the flow of analysis smooth and facilitates effective communication of
key findings.
- Data Preparation: The collection of data from diverse sources, its analysis in terms
of dimensions and measurements, and the meticulous preparation required are
important. Data preparation ensures that datasets are clean, organized, and ready for
detailed analysis.
- Online analytical processing (OLAP): OLAP is a powerful BI capability that
allows for the swift analysis of data from multiple database systems at once. It's
particularly useful for complex calculations, trend analysis over time, and data
modeling.
III. INTRODUCE SOME SOFTWARE RELATED TO BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
1. Tableau
1.1. Overview of usage
Tableau is a data visualization tool with a user-friendly interface and easy-to-use basic
feature. However, non-technical users can take advantage of the parsing capabilities
without any training. Another advantage of Tableau is that this software has a large
community, users can easily gain knowledge, skills and experience from other users.
1.2. BI feature
- Favorable: Supports many data sources: Relational database, NoSQL database,
Multi-dimensional database, Big Data Platform, File data sources (Execl, csv,
txt, Json, pdf, mdb, Tableau)
- Powerful data visualization capabilities: Using unique visualization technology,
Tableau can quickly analyze data by representing analysis results in color,
shape, and size. Tableau's development team is continuing to research the chart
types that users prefer. Therefore, Tableau can display the best chart for the
data. However, gauges, 3D graphs, and heat maps cannot be used.
- Disadvantage:
 Limited BI features: Tableau still lacks a bit of features for a perfect
business analytics tool. For example, large-scale reporting, building data
tables and static layouts. In addition, export and print formats are also
limited, quite inconvenient when sharing.
 Customization issues: Tableau is difficult to customize or embed into a
company's architectural drawings.
1.3. Price
The price of the software will correspond to the number of users. This price will be
suitable for large businesses instead of small and medium enterprises.
2. FineReport
2.1. Overview of usage
 With an interface similar to Excel and the ability to drag and drop objects.
FineReport is a very suitable tool for beginners. Anyone who has ever used Excel can
quickly use this software. The official website provides detailed study materials and
videos for users, including 24/7 technical support.
2.2. BI feature
- Favorable:
 Smart Data Import: The feature that sets FineReport apart, providing rich
controls that make it easy to import large data through forms directly
into the database, with functions such as validation data and temporary
storage. In addition, it also supports online and batch import of Excel
data.
 Easily create complex reports: Impressive handling of complex reports.
Concatenate aggregate blocks, eliminating problems when merging and
splitting cells in Excel. Each aggregate block is independent and can be
dragged and dropped together to create ad hoc reports.
- Disadvantage:
 Inconvenient when analyzing multidimensionally: You need to create a
report for each dimension to be able to set many details for a data cell.
 No chart suggestion feature: You have to choose the chart type that suits
your needs yourself because FineReport will not make suggestions.
2.3. Price
FineReport is free for individuals, with no time limits or features. For
businesses, the price range will depend on the functional modules and users, ranging
between Tableau and Power BI.
3. Power BI
3.1. Overview of usage
From Microsoft, taking Excel Pivot Table and Excel data visualization tools to
the next level. Provided quite detailed videos and learning materials to help users
quickly get acquainted.
3.2. BI feature
- Favorable:
 Excel integration: Power BI can connect with any Microsoft Office
software. You can put the raw data into Excel - where you can look
behind the scenes.
 R Script Visualization: The only tool in the TOP 5 that supports R, uses
R's rich analytics and visualization capabilities to present and analyze
advanced data such as forecasting.
- Disadvantage:
  Management issue: Power BI does not support multi-level permissions,
cannot control the granularity of column levels viewed by users, and
does not fully control group permissions.
 Data processing ability is not good for the free version: The free version
is limited in the amount of data it can process. Once you reach 2GB
capacity, you must upgrade to the paid version to reduce processing
time.
3.3. Price
The Pro version is currently only $9.99/user/month, lower than any similar
product.
4. QlikView
4.1. Overview of usage
QlikView is a self-service tool that works with its own federation technology and
in-memory technology. Intuitive, easy-to-use interface, comes with smart search
feature, no need to build blocks, more suitable for ad learning analysis than everyday
analysis.
4.2. BI feature
- Favorable
 In-memory technology: QlikView calculates data while it flows from the
backend to the fontend. Since no aggregated or pre-calculated data is
stored, system memory can be saved and data transfer speeds are fast.
 Search for direct and indirect data: You can search for both direct and
indirect data. Directly, you can enter data and get information, indirectly,
enter content related to the desired data and get all related data.
- Disadvantage
 Not user-friendly for non-technical users: This limitation can be difficult
for end users to get used to.
 Map charts are not supported: While map charts are growing, this feature
is not natively supported in QlikView. Creating geographic map charts is
quite complicated, unless an add-on is purchased from a third party.
4.3. Price
Each individual user on QlikView costs $1350 and concurrent users $15000.
Server license is $35000, other services available at additional cost.
5. Sisense
5.1. Overview of usage
Sisense has an intuitive interface, operated by drag and drop mechanism. The
online community is large, although not as crowded as Tableau, the resources here
are enough for newcomers to get acquainted and use.
5.2. BI feature
- Favorable:
 Fast speed: Ask any question and get an answer instantly without having
to go back to the drawing board for new queries thanks to the engine
software in Chip.
  Flexible integration: Easily integrate with third-party applications like
Google Adwords, Excel, Zendesk, and Salesforce.
- Disadvantage:
 Limit the amount of charts: Reporting and visualization features are
somewhat basic compared to other tools.
 Inconvenience when working in groups: Admins cannot currently edit
dashboards, only owners of folders and dashboards can publish changes.
5.3. Price
Free trial offered, price for full version based on quote, need to contact supplier.
IV. DASHBOARD