Business intelligence

Business intelligence delivers the means to analyse performance of an organisation, it's customers and products. If you are familiar with spreadsheets, you may have used a pivot-table to analyse figures. Business intelligence provides a similar form of analysis.

Spreadsheets can be difficult to maintain and are prone to error. Business intelligence provides a robust and reliable method to provide summarised and detailed data.

Business intelligence can also be applied to other areas of a business such as stock control, logistics, financial management. It is increasingly being used to manage the performance of websites and on-line communities.

Analysis differs from conventional reporting. Rather than just providing a list of top customers or products by revenue. It allows users to explore and discover performance trends and patterns:

Which region produced the most sales?
In that region, which product category accounted for the greatest sales?
For that category, which product was the most profitable?
Which customers purchased this product?
How frequently to they buy it?

A well designed business intelligence deployment will deliver the answers.

The data is packaged into cubes to provide the user with intuitive navigation. Requirements are expressed in terms of measures e.g. sales, quantity, margin and dimensions e.g. customers, products etc. The dimensions provide summarisations e.g. all products, categories and product item.

A cubes may comprise many dimensions and measures.

Users can easily navigate discrete areas of data. They can re-arrange the orientation and drill-down to lower levels of detail. As a result they gain insight into the dynamics of their business.

The OLAP Cube

Slice and dice the data to achive the required view

The data cube is just like a Rubik's cube, remember them?

User can review Customer sales and then re-orientate the puzzle. The result providing a new perspective.

One of the benefits of this technology is that the cube can be defined in business terms. This aligns IT with the business and reduces potential misunderstanding of errors.

A new perspective provides insight

Business Intelligence is sometimes referred to as OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) or Cubes the term used here.

Free guide to delivering business intelligence

Most businesses have customer data stored in sales systems, CRM and websites. These systems provide a fantastic resource for managing business performance.

Are you seeking ways to deliver management information?
Would you like guidance on how to deliver business intelligence?

This guide provides a step-by-step guide to delivering business intelligence.

View our free guide to delivering business intelligence

Telephone: 01494 871 342

contact@information-drivers.com

Client Feedback

"Produced remarkable results in a fraction of the time it had taken one of the global consultancies to identify potential business direction, established true business opportunities based on live data. We were so impressed we commissioned more projects..." ~ Mike Turner, formerly Business Systems Director, CMP Information, a division of United Business media

CMP Information case study

Client Project

First National is a personal finance company. They were implementing CRM to support their customers and intermediaries. The CRM provided support for a more effective and cost efficient telesales operation.

This initiative was a major undertaking. Management recognised that CRM performance must managed to redeem the maximum potential benefits.

We designed their data warehouse and assisted with its development. Subsequently consultancy was provided to other business divisions.

First National case study

The Data Surgery

Ask for advice about your data and the information you need. Just submit your question to The Data Surgery

Office location: Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire - serving clients in London, The Midlands and The South of England