In a nutshell, Business Intelligence (BI) serves to collect and analyze data to determine what should be done to improve business processes. Software supports the decision making through analyzing the data gathered in an IT systems serves any company, no matter its size or industry.
Business Intelligence in the area of reporting and analysis
Bi solutions are mainly used in the area of reporting and analysis. The core of the BI system is an implemented data warehouse. The primary benefit coming from the implementation of the BI solutions is swift and flexible access to coherent and reliable information essential to making business decisions. Those information may be a detailed information about a sale, its change dynamics, breakdown of individual regions, the entity responsible, or sellers.
The first clue that signals to apply BI solutions is the appearance of first problems with accessing information or trusting its accuracy. The base assumption to implementing the BI solutions is an automatic assurance of the appropriate quality of data and providing the periodically required reports. Thanks to this, time spent preparing the information, can be spent on the analysis. The system also eliminates potential mistakes or different approaches to defining individual business sizes, at the same time ensuring a coherent look at the company through different system users.
Implementing BI solutions in a company
BI is used in companies that are evolutionarily computerizing. Having transaction systems, they also want to have analytical tools. Thanks to implementing BI solutions, it is possible to eliminate the “information puzzle” phenomenon, meaning a disorder of information coming from various systems operating within the firm framework.
In practice the are two philosophies found in implementing the Business application
- First, the company implements an ERP system, and then, based on the emerged and structured data, implements the BI.
- First, the company implements the BI system and, after using owned information about the firm coming from various sources and sofwares, decides on implementing or not implementing the ERP system.
The choice of the implementing method should be preceded by an analysis, which will confront the abilities of the BI system with the company expectations. Nonetheless, it’s worth noting that the second method, due to lower costs and the evolutionary, not revolutionary changes in the firm, is a solution that allows feeling the benefits of the implementation in a very short time.
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Has been working with the implementation of IT systems supporting management for 15 years. He specializes in Business and Workflow solutions. Enthusiast of using AI to support business processes. Archman’s CEO and chancellor of College of Economics And Computer Science in Cracow.
