A course on the days ‘in-thing’ Business Intelligence and its applications right before joining the IT industry towards the end of one’s MBA curriculum does bear the promise to add a lot of value to the individual’s career profile and hence creates an umpteen environment of excitement.
Thus an introduction to BI helped us grasp its basics, more so with hands on experience on SPSS and Permap software. SPSS is a computer program for statistical analysis, originally designed for Social Sciences. And Permap is a Multi Dimensional Scaling tool which helps in comparing between different attributes among samples based on their overall / attribute similarity.
The SPSS hands on makes one gain knowledge on;
A. 1st Level Analysis (Arriving at business decisions based on frequency, Bi variate data analysis using Cross Tab functionality focussing on customers behavioural or personality traits using frequencies, percentages, Null Hypothesis testing & Chi Square Tests)
B. 2nd Level analysis (Arriving at business decisions based on Cluster analysis – grouping the data based on clustering objective,use of Hierarchical or K-Means cluster depending on the no of cases involved, identification of Proximity Matrix and visual depiction using Dendograms).
The Permap hands on helped us get familiarized with the concepts of;
A. Multi Dimensional Scaling (Arriving at business decisions on minimizing perceptual error about objects like, brands or products etc using Perceptual Mapping to identify attribute based similarity and sensitivity analysis on the change of these decisions by altering one or more of these attributes).
B. Discriminant Analysis (Arriving at business decisions about certain aspects based on past historical data, predicting the characteristics of certain attributes, verifying the change in nature of such attributes based on conditionality and finding the accuracy of behaviour or decision predictions.)
With so much technicality involved what runs among most of us is the fundamental question, if BI is such a powerful tool where in lies its mass applications? Being such a hyped and well researched field of study what are some of the next big trends in this sector? What all are the tools & techniques are used in most organisations? To satiate my inquisitive itch I came out with 2 interesting industry applications wherein the usage of BI has probably transformed the game altogether,
1. Logistics - Over the last few decades the role of logistics management has undergone a paradigm shift & has become an extremely important aspect of the overall business strategy. The increased complexity of logistics management has led many companies to outsource their logistics activities to 3rd Party Logistics (3PL) providers. Today, 3PLs play a critical role in the supply chains of their customers. They are increasingly viewed as strategic partners who can play a pivotal role in optimizing the supply chain and thereby providing sustained competitive advantage.
To effectively manage the supply chains of their customers, 3PLs need to constantly analyze data collected from various sources and convert it into actionable information. Business Intelligence tools like data warehousing and OLAP can significantly help 3PLs in achieving this objective. By providing a unified view of the entire supply chain, these tools can help improve the functioning of basic 3PL services like transportation management, warehousing and inventory management. 3PLs can leverage BI tools to provide their clients with information specific to their supply chain, thereby increasing their market responsiveness. BI tools also help 3PLs improve their own internal organizational functions like human resources and financial management.
(More info on this available in the White Paper : Business Intelligence & Logistics by Authors: Srinivasa Rao & Saurabh Swarup – BI/DW Consultants – WIPRO Technologies)
2. Banking - The banking industry has invested heavily in information technology and generally banks are quite sophisticated in their use of IT. However, when it comes to standardization and industrialization of systems and processes inside a bank, well, the industry lags behind its counterparts. Industry standards have already defined the foundation for business process interoperability in the banking industry, particularly with respect to the exchange of funds with other banks or financial networks. Towards this objective certain applications of BI prove to be of extreme value addition like the usage of XBRL - Extensible Business Reporting Language.
XBRL is a language for the electronic communication of business and financial data which is changing banking business reporting around the world. Companies use XBRL to save costs and streamline their processes for collecting and reporting financial information. Consumers of financial data, including investors, analysts, financial institutions and regulators, can receive, find, compare and analyze data much more rapidly and efficiently if it is in XBRL format.
Moving ahead I tried to gather an insight on the latest & upcoming trends in the BI practices arena. And here’s what the experts have to say on this;
1. One of the top trends for business intelligence in 2011 is the movement towards utilization of Social Data. There are over 250 major social media and networking sites producing data that can be incorporated into enterprise business intelligence environments.
2. Small Business. Business intelligence is getting simpler and easier to setup as more and more vendors try to enter the market. This will enable smaller companies to take advantage of business intelligence.
3. BI on mobile devices - getting closer to the 'right data, right information, right insight, right time, right person' mantra of BI.
4. End-User Driven Visualization. Large reports, even end-user driven ones are pretty useless if they just present large amounts of data in text format or similar. Customised visualisation & evolution of Intelligent intuitive tools that can understand the context of the data being presented and can choose one or a few of the most appropriate ways of displaying the information would emerge to be the call of the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment