Most Business Intelligence (BI) systems allow organizations to improve their business performance by accessing, leveraging and publishing information concerning customers, suppliers, finance and business operations in an effective and efficient way.
Bi systems extract data from multiple sources such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Practice Management and Accounting, Human Resource Management and other business applications.
BI systems provide the ability to centralize, organize, standardize and publish information found in databases such as data warehouses, universes or data marts.
BI systems provide analytical tools that allow users (with assigned rights and permissions) to access a broad range of information and run queries against the data to uncover patterns, diagnose problems and make decisions that affect the strategic plan of the organization.
Data extraction, transformation and load
Data integration technology is generally used to extract transactional and operational data from internal and external applications to build the data warehouse. This process are referred to as "ETL" for extract, transform and load. Data is extracted from its source application(s) or repositories and then loaded into the data warehouse or universe.
Data Warehouses and Data Marts
A data warehouse, universe or data mart imports and stores operational, tactical and historical information into a fully relational database and allows the user to extract and assemble specific data elements from a complete dataset to perform a variety of analyses. Data warehouses can be architected according to schema (star, snowflake, etc), data composition (values and attributes) and dimension levels and descriptors. Data marts enable additional segmentation within a broader data warehouse environment.
Query, Reporting and Analysis
Technical and business analysts use a variety of tools to access data, analyze information and view the results.
a) Query and Reporting Tools: Most BI systems allow users to perform historical, "slice-and-dice" analysis against information stored in a data warehouse. This type of analysis answers "what?" and "when?" questions. BI systems also allow users to access pre-built or pre-defined queries and reports.
b) On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) and Data Mining: Analytical engines and data mining tools allow users to perform predictive, multidimensional analysis, also known as "drill-down's". BI tools can be used for forecasting, customer profiling, matter profitability and trend analysis. They answer "what if" and "why?" questions, such as, "What would be the effect of additional associates in a particular practice group?"
Business Performance Management: BPM uses real-time business intelligence to proactively improve productivity and encourage continuous process improvement in a firm. This approach extends the more traditional approach of business scorecards and can include financial, organizational, customer service, supply chain, and channel performance management information.
Information Delivery: Query results and reports can be delivered through dedicated desktop applications, dashboards, intranets, and extranet portals.
Business Intelligence and Web Services
Business Intelligence is being fundamentally changed by Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) and the emerging Web Services model. XML provides a universal syntax for the representation of data, enabling integration and analysis across BI environments and across traditional organizational and technical boundaries. As this area evolves, it becomes easier for different organizations to share data.
