How I Teach BI Watson

Business Intelligence and
How to Teach It
Hugh J. Watson
Terry College of Business
University of Georgia
Topics
• Terminology, frameworks, and concepts
• What’s new in BI
• Different BI “targets”
• Exemplars of BI-based organizations
• Requirements for being successful with BI and
analytics
• What I teach in my BI courses
• Using the Teradata University Network to teach BI
What Is Business Intelligence?
• Its roots go back to the late 1960s

• In the 1970s, there were decision support
systems (DSS)
• In the 1980s, there were EIS, OLAP, GIS,
and more
• Data warehousing and
dashboards/scorecards became popular
in the 1990s
What Is Business Intelligence?
• Howard Dresner, a Gartner analyst, coined

the BI term in the early 1990s
• Today there is much discussion of
analytics
• There are many BI definitions, but the
following is useful
Business intelligence (BI)
is a broad category of
applications,
technologies, and
processes for gathering,
storing, accessing, and
analyzing data to help
business users make
better decisions.
Things Are Getting More
Complex
• Source systems include social
media, machine sensing, and
clickstream data (Big Data)
• The cloud, Hadoop/Reduce, and
appliances are being used as data
stores
• Advanced analytics are growing in
popularity and importance
Big Data BI in the
Pervasive BI Data
Cloud
Appliances
Columnar
Mobile Predictive
Databases
BI Analytics Real Time BI
BI Based Advanced Data

BI Governance Visualization
Organizations
In-Memory
Data Scientists Rules Engines
Analytics
SaaS
BI Competency Centers Hadoop/MapReduce
BI 2.0
Software BI Search Agile Open Source
BI Software
Text
Master Data Event
Analytics
Management Analytics
What Is Meant by Analytics?
• A new term for BI

• Just the data analysis part of BI
• “Rocket science” algorithms
• Three kinds of analytics
Descriptive Analytics
What has occurred?

Predictive Analytics
What will occur?

Prescriptive Analytics
What should occur?

There are different
“targets” for BI
A single or
a few
applications
• A point solution
• May be
departmental
• Serves a
specific business
need
• A possible entry
point
Enterprise
analytical
capabilities
• The infrastructure
is created for
enterprise-wide
analytics
• Analytics are used
throughout the
organization
• Analytics are key to
business success
Organizational
transformation
• Brought about by
opportunity or
necessity
• The firm adopts a
new business model
enabled by analytics
• Analytics are a
competitive
requirement
For BI-based organizations, the
use of BI/analytics is a
requirement for
successfully competing in the
marketplace.
2011 Academic Research
Firms that 5-6% Productivity

emphasize
Return on equity
data and
Market value
analytics
Conditions that
Lead to Analytics-
based
Organizations
• The nature of the
industry
• Seizing an opportunity
• Responding to a
problem
Complex Systems
versus Volume
Operations
• A distinction made by
Geoffrey Moore
• Helps in understanding
what kinds of organizations
are most likely to be
analytics based
Complex Systems
• Tackle complex problems and provide
individualized solutions
• Products and services are organized around the
needs of individual customers
• Dollar value of interactions with each customer
is high
• There is considerable interaction with each
customer
• Examples: IBM, World Bank, Halliburton
Volume Operations
• Serves high-volume markets through
standardized products and services
• Each customer interaction has a low dollar
value
• Customer interactions are generally conducted
through technology rather than person-to-
person
• Are likely to be analytics-based
• Examples: Amazon.com, eBay, Hertz
The nature of the
industry: Online
Retailers
BI Applications
• Analysis of clickstream data
• Customer profitability analysis
• Customer segmentation analysis
• Product recommendations
• Campaign management
• Pricing
• Forecasting
• Dashboards
“We are a business
intelligence company”
Patrick Byrne,
CEO, Overstock.com
Seizing an
Opportunity:
Harrah’s
• In 1993, the gaming laws
changed
• Harrah’s decided to
compete and expand
using a brand and
customer loyalty strategy
• Implemented WINet with
an ODS and DW
• Offered the industry’s
first customer loyalty
program, Total Rewards
Seizing an
Opportunity:
Harrah’s
• Fact based decision
making replaced
“Harrahisms”
• Today it is the largest
gaming company in the
world
• Recently renamed
Caesars
Responding to a
problem: First
American
Corporation
• The bank was failing First
American
• A new management team
stopped the bleeding
• A customer intimacy
strategy was implemented,
Tailored Client Solutions
Responding to a
problem: First
American
Corporation
• The business strategy was First
enable by a data American
warehouse and BI
Responding to a
problem: First
American
Corporation
• External talent was brought First
in as needed American
• Applications using VISION
were developed for every
component of TCS
• The bank was transformed
from “banking by intuition” to
“banking by information and
analysis”
Let’s Answer Two Questions
1. What is special
about advanced
analytics?
2. What are the
requirements for
being a BI or
analytics-based
organization?
A clear business need
Strong, committed sponsorship
Alignment between the
business and IT strategy
A fact-based decision
making culture
Creating a Fact Based Culture
• Things that senior management needs to
do:
Recognize that some people can’t or won’t
adjust
Be a vocal supporter
Stress that outdated methods must be
discontinued
Ask to see what analytics went into decisions
Link incentives and compensation to desired
behaviors
A strong data infrastructure
Source: Eckerson, 2011
The right analytical tools
New tools and architectures
may be needed
Strong analytical personnel in an
appropriate organizational
structure
Knowledge Requirements for
Advanced Analytics
Business Domain
Data Modeling
Business Analyst
Uses BI tools and
applications to
understand
business conditions
and drive business
processes
Data Scientist
Uses advanced
algorithms and
interactive exploration
tools to uncover non-
obvious patterns in
data
Business Analyst Data Scientist
Business Domain Business Domain
Data Modeling Data Modeling

Business Analyst Data Scientist
Education: BBA, MBA MS, PhD

Tools: Cognos, Hyperion KXEN, SAS
Analytics: OLAP Neural networks
Focus: Business Analytics
Scope: Departmental Enterprise-wide
Value: High Exceptionally high
Where to put
the analytics
team?
• Spread throughout the
organization
• In a standalone unit
• In some form of an
Analytics Competency
Center
What I Teach in My BI Course
• Concepts, terms, and definitions
• Making the business case for BI
• Development methodology for BI
• Data and data warehousing
• BI software
• Interface design
• BI applications (e.g., dashboards)
• Analytics
• Best practices case studies
• Organizational issues
• Determining the ROI for BI
• Implementing BI enterprise wide
• Future directions for BI
Teradata University Network
• A premier, free online educational resource
for university professors around the world
who teach classes on data warehousing,
DSS/business intelligence, and database.
Current Membership
 Over 3,000 registered faculty members
 Representing 1,641 universities
 In 90 countries
 Thousands of students
• An international community, led by academics, whose members share

their ideas, experiences, and resources with others
www.teradatauniversitynetwork.com
Using the Teradata University
Network
• Faculty apply for membership, and are authenticated
• Faculty have access to course syllabi, articles, cases,
projects, assignments, presentations, software (Teradata,
MicroStrategy) various datasets, web seminars, and more.
• Faculty have the ability to post and share their favorite
content
• Faculty send students to TUN to access course-related
materials
Resources from TUN
• Articles
 Current state of BI
 Business analytics
 Big data
 Future directions for BI software
 Understanding users value proposition
 Decision support sweet spot
 Dashboards and scorecards
 Dashboard design
 Data warehousing
 Data profiling
 Data quality
 Data mining primer
 Assessing BI readiness
 Business schools need to
change what they teach
Resources from TUN
• Cases
 Harrah’s
 First American Corporation
 Continental Airlines
 Retailstore.com
 Catalina Marketing
 Norfolk Southern Railway
 Spokane Teachers Credit Union
 U.S. Xpress
• Videos
 Applebee’s
 Nationwide
 Continental Airlines
 BSI: Retail Tweeters
Resources from TUN
• Assignments
 1-800 CONTACTS
 Genericorp
• Software
 Teradata SQL Web Assistant
 MicroStrategy
 Tableau
References
• Brynjolfsson, Hitt, and Kim, “Strength in Numbers: How does
data-driven decision-making affect firm performance?,”
Social Science Research Network (SSRN), April 2011.
• Cooper, Watson, Wixom, and Goodhue, "Data Warehousing
Supports Corporate Strategy at First American Corporation,"
MIS Quarterly, December 2000.
• Eckerson, “Big Data Analytics,” BeyeNetwork, September
2011.
• Davenport, Harris, and Morison, Analytics at Work: Smarter
Decisions, Better Results, Harvard Business School Press,
2010.
References
• Davenport and Harris, Competing on Analytics: The New
Science of Winning , Harvard Business School Press, 2007.
• Eckerson, W. (2011). Big Data Analytics: Profiling the Use of
Analytical Platforms in User Organizations. BeyeNetwork.
http://www.beyeresearch.com/executive/15546
• LaValle, et al., “Analytics: The New Path to Value,” IBM, MIT
Sloan Management Review, 2010,
http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/gbe03371us
en/GBE03371USEN.PDF
References
• Moore, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-tech
Products to Mainstream Customers, HarperBusiness
Essentials, 2002.
• Moore, Inside the Tornado, HarperBusiness Essentials, 2004.
• Watson, “Business Analytics Insight: Hype or Here to Stay?”
Business Intelligence Journal,” March 2011.
• Watson and Volonino, “Harrah’s High Payoff from Customer
Information,” Printed in Eckerson and Watson, Harnessing
Customer Information for Strategic Advantage: Technical
Challenges and Business Solutions, TDWI, 2000.
References
• White paper, “The Current State of Business Analytics: Where
Do We Go From Here?” Bloomberg BusinessWeek Research
Services, 2011.
• Williams, “Assessing BI Readiness: A Key to BI ROI,” Business
Intelligence Journal, Summer 2004.
Dr. Hugh J. Watson is a Professor of
MIS and a holder of a C. Herman and
Mary Virginia Terry Chair of Business
Administration in the Terry College of
Business at the University of Georgia.
Hugh has authored 23 books and over
150 scholarly journal articles. He is a
Fellow of the Association for Information
Systems and The Data Warehousing
Institute and is the Senior Editor of the
Business Intelligence Journal. For the
past 20 years, Hugh has been the
consulting editor for John Wiley & Sons’
MIS series. He can be contacted at
[email protected]

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Business Intelligence and

• Its roots go back to the late 1960s

• Howard Dresner, a Gartner analyst, coined

BI Based Advanced Data

• A new term for BI

What has occurred?

What will occur?

What should occur?

Firms that 5-6% Productivity

Business Domain Business Domain

Data Modeling Data Modeling

Education: BBA, MBA MS, PhD

• An international community, led by academics, whose members share

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