The comedian George Carlin once joked that the term Military Intelligence is an oxymoron. I don’t agree, but some might make the same claim about Business Intelligence. Is endless analysis of ERP data with pivot tables, or BI tolls like Cognos, Microsoft Power BI, Oracle BI Publisher etc. contributing to the success of businesses, or is it mostly providing job security for database administrators and software developers. I believe BI can contribute greatly to the success of any business. Like anything else in the IT world, the solution needs to be appropriate for the task. The types of data typically analyzed include;
Sales and profitability trends
Manufacturing efficiency and utilization
Quality control performance
Customer Service performance including quality and delivery
Supply Chain performance including supplier rating
At the low end of cost and complexity, Excel can accomplish a lot, particularly if your system can query and export data in Excel or CSV format. The pivot table and graph functions of Excel can then slice, dice and graphically display important business data.
Also at the low end of cost and complexity are report writing tools such as Crystal Reports and Microsoft SSRS, and Oracle Reports. Although not considered fully functional BI tools, they include significant capabilities to analyze and visualize data. SSRS is included with Microsoft SQL Server at no additional cost.
Tools at the higher end of cost and complexity include;
Cognos
Sisense
Microsoft Power BI
Oracle BI Publisher
Tableau
These tools offer more advanced analytic capabilities and features for extracting data from very large databases. They also typically include automation for delivering analyses on a schedule or when certain thresholds are met. The ability to combine multiple data view in web-based dashboard is also typical.
Regardless of the tool, the important is to choose a relatively small number of key performance indicators that provide insight into the health of your business, then build the BI around those. Too much information becomes hard to digest.
