DM Review - Frequently Asked Questions on Business Intelligence Page 1 of 2

Published in Portal Feature in September 2001.

Printed from DMReview.com

Frequently Asked Questions on Business Intelligence

By Author No

What value does business intelligence provide my organization?

Business intelligence (BI) provides timely and accurate information to better understand
your business and to make more informed, real-time business decisions. Full utilization of
BI solutions can optimize business processes and resources, improve proactive decision
making and maximize profits/minimize costs. These solutions can create an infinite number
of possible applications for finance, competition monitoring, accounting, marketing, product
comparison or a combination of a number of business areas. The most agile BI solutions can
be used in any industry and provide an infinite number of value-increasing possibilities for
any organization.

What are the different types of business intelligence software?

Business intelligence software falls into the following categories:

1. Technologies – Databases optimized for frequent, high volume, multidimensional

queries.
2. Analytic Applications – Pre-built applications with defined metrics, methodologies
and processes for addressing business problems associated with specific vertical
markets or functional areas of a company.
3. Analysis Tools – Applications that are not vertical-market or business-function
specific, but provide essential functions such as data visualization, reporting and
querying.
4. Development Platform – These building blocks allow for the customized
development of analytic applications to meet any business requirements. Platforms
may include a programming language such as Java, Visual Basic or C and/or pre-built
templates or objects. More advanced platforms provide a user-friendly interface to
manipulate these elements without coding.

What does it mean when business intelligence solutions provide native API support?

API stands for application programming interface and essentially allows for communication
between programs. An analytic application may use an API to utilize a server-side function
available through a multidimensional database technology without having to build the
function directly within the application.

What are the key features when evaluating business intelligence applications?

There are three general aspects of a BI solution that are invaluable and should be assessed

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when in the evaluation stage. These features are scalability, usability and manageability.

The most scalable solutions and, therefore, the solutions that provide the most value for
companies ensure the specialization of applications through open and distributed
architecture. They also ensure load balancing to adequately manage fluctuating user
numbers for low- and high-application traffic.

The usability assessment should focus on aspects such as information integration, global
information delivery, functionality and security.

Solutions that score high in these areas as well as ease of use for end users exhibit the most
value.

Manageability focuses more on the administrators’ needs and company expenditure.

Solutions that present ease of use for administrators, Web-browser deployment,
development flexibility, low total cost of ownership and quick ROI round out the total value
of a solution.

When a solution is evaluated based on these features and decided upon because of its
strength in these areas, it ensures maximum benefit and value for a company.

How do I know if my business intelligence application is successful?

Obviously in order for a BI application to be successful, it needs to exhibit the key features
focused on during the evaluation stage when deployed. You can successfully develop and
deploy a fancy new system, but if your information consumers don’t use it, then it is still a
failure. The simple truth is that your end users want a desirable system that appeals to them
on both a practical and emotional level. They want a solution that:

z Lets them be in control,

z Respects their approach and their perspective,
z Is intuitive to use,
z Provides comprehensive data and brings them real value,
z Is free of constraints of time, place, data origin or structure.

The most advanced BI solutions focus on the end user to help ensure use by information
consumers.

© 2001 DM Review. Faulkner & Gray.

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