Description
To succeed in the context of a global and dynamic economic environment, the companies must use all the information they have, as efficiently as possible
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138
A Few Implementation Solutions for Business Intelligence
Manole VELICANU
Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, România
Gheorghe MATEI, Romanian Commercial Bank
To succeed in the context of a global and dynamic economic environment, the compa-
nies must use all the information they have, as efficiently as possible, in order to gain compet-
itive advantages and to consolidate their position on the market. They have to respond quick-
ly to the changes in the business environment and to adapt themselves to the market’s re-
quirements. To achieve these goals, the companies must use modern informatics technologies
for data acquiring, storing, accessing and analyzing. These technologies are to be integrated
into innovative solutions, such as Business Intelligence systems, which can help managers to
better control the business practices and processes, to improve the company’s performance
and to conserve it’s competitive advantages.
Keywords: Business Intelligence, competitive advantage, OLAP, data mining, key perfor-
mance indicators.
Introduction
In today’s context of a competitive eco-
nomic environment which is permanently
changing, the ability to use intelligent infor-
mation in order to cope with the challenges
and to benefit for the opportunities represents
an essential condition for any company that
wants not only to stay on the market, but also
to consolidate its position. In any organiza-
tion, there is a large volume of data concern-
ing production indicators, financial reports,
data about sales, balance sheets, forecasts etc.
In spite of this, the managers are frequently
missing information of high quality, timely
updated, in order to make the best decisions.
To remain competitive in the global competi-
tive economy, companies have to adapt
themselves to any action of the market, to re-
spond dynamically to the changes in the
business environment and customers’ re-
quirements. Moreover, they have to antic-
ipate the changes inside and outside the in-
dustry they are acting in and quickly make
the adequate decisions. Making fast business
decisions, based on reliable information, is
essential for any company. That is why they
must have proper instruments to intercept
immediately the changes in the economic,
social, legislative and administrative envi-
ronment, to analyze them and to make the
proper decisions as soon as possible. Compa-
nies must permanently know which are the
most highly demanded products on the mar-
ket, which are the most profitable customers,
what new products and services they should
provide if they want to stay efficient. Beside
competitiveness, companies must permanent-
ly be concerned with the optimization of their
value chains and the enhancement of the de-
cision process. For achieving these goals,
they must implement some solutions, which
are capable to offer management an overview
of the organization at a certain moment, as
well as projections on different periods. Such
solutions must be capable to assist the deci-
sion process in order to make coherent and
well based strategies. These solutions must
provide answers to “what-if” questions and
to find patterns to guide strategic decisions
making.
2. The role and goals of Business Intelli-
gence
These goals cannot be achieved without the
help of information technologies, especially
Business Intelligence solutions. This term
was proposed in 1989 by Howard Dresner
who, at that time, was a researcher at Gartner
Group. He defined Business Intelligence as
“a set of concepts and methods for improving
the decision process, using support systems
based on facts”.
Business Intelligence (BI) is an information
technology dealing with the structure, func-
1
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
139
tioning and management of organizations, by
using the computational technique. The suc-
cess of a company relies on information. BI
is a systematic process of collecting, analyz-
ing and disseminating information. That sets
to achieve or conserve competitive advantag-
es, preventing deviations in the company’s
activity and grabbing the opportunities on the
market. BI consists of a set of applications
and technologies for data storing, accessing
and analyzing, in order to help users make
better decisions.
In the article [VELU06] more goals of BI
are presented, among which we can mention:
providing business solutions at law costs,
which can give advantages to the company;
easy and fast data access for numerous and
diverse users;
providing the technological support for da-
ta analyses;
building a collaborative environment;
providing an open and scalable frame-
work.
These solutions enable the intelligent usage
and interpretation of business information.
With their help, the users can better control
the business practices and processes and ana-
lyze the performance indicators. Decisions
are more efficient if the information about
the business environment and competitors are
analyzed with such applications, which pro-
vide capabilities of extrapolation and making
correct forecasts concerning the future eco-
nomic trends and conditions. They offer
companies and users on all the hierarchical
levels a solid, complete and powerful tech-
nology for extracting, from a large volume of
data, the key information, relevant and useful
for decision process and business control.
Knowing all the aspects of the business and
understanding both the factors having a posi-
tive influence and, especially, those having a
negative impact, represents an important re-
quirement for performance improvement and
company’s increase on the market. By using
the new information technologies, the com-
panies learn what has happened in their busi-
ness, why it has happened and what will hap-
pen. All these things, together with the users’
experience and intuition, lead to gaining
competitive advantages [VEMA07a]. At the
same time, BI solutions contribute to the eli-
mination of communication barriers inside
the company and enable decisions making on
the basis of consistent information and colla-
borative support.
Thus, BI has a crucial role in consolidating
the company’s position on the market, im-
plementing the best practices and improving
the business processes, and helping the com-
pany become more competitive and efficient.
Nowadays, the company’s performance de-
pends more and more on the level of adapta-
tion of the information systems to the general
purposes of the organization. A powerful BI
platform ensures fast data access and pro-
vides capabilities of performance analyses,
getting synthetic information concerning
both its own business and competitors’ busi-
ness. It aims to improve the quality of infor-
mation concerning:
market conditions and future trends;
company’s position in comparison to the
one of its competitors;
company’s capabilities;
the social, legislative and political envi-
ronment;
how other companies operate on the mar-
ket;
changes in customers’ behavior etc.
On the basis of this information companies
can decide on the proper measures for the
necessary adjustments in order to conserve
and extend its position on the market.
The concept of BI originates from the execu-
tive information systems in the early 1990s.
The BI systems are composed of more in-
struments which allow to access the relevant
information of the organization and to
present it in a meaningful form. Their pur-
pose is to achieve competent analyses con-
cerning the company’s activity, and to turn
the information into knowledge that can help
the decision process, so that the decided ac-
tions contribute to the organization’s success.
More and more managers of the business en-
vironment think that BI has become a vital
instrument meant to help the company to
achieve strategic goals, performance en-
hancement and improve the decisions and the
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
140
strategic development plans.
The worldwide market of the BI solutions is
raising significantly. A survey made by Gart-
ner Group in 2006 on a sample of 1400 com-
panies found that BI area was considered the
first technological priority. This year, the
revenues from selling BI licenses were esti-
mated at $2.5 billion, with 6% more than in
the previous year [GART06]. For the first
time, BI has become the leader in the tech-
nological priorities of the organizations, in-
stead of the information security which held
this position for years.
In 2009, worldwide BI sales will total $3 bil-
lion, with an average annual growth rate of
7.3%. While the growing in the developed
countries will be between 6.3 – 6.9%, on the
emergent markets it will be between 11.3 –
11.6% yearly.
3. Business Intelligence contribution to
the business processes improvement
The optimization and automatization of the
business process by the help of BI systems
contribute to the enhancement of the decision
system, and offer a global view of the entire
activity. BI solutions are present in all do-
mains. Most of them include financial ana-
lyses, analysis of current and potential cus-
tomers, sales and marketing campaign effi-
ciency etc. They contribute to attracting cus-
tomers and to making them loyal, and to
building a long term partnership, a better
management of their requirements, the iden-
tification of new customer and product seg-
ments, fraud detection and operational risk
management. A study conducted by Europe
VISA in 2005, based on the monitoring of
seven European banks which issue Visa
cards, found that the usage of BI solutions
has reduced frauds from 4576 to 458 cases
monthly, also substantially decreasing the
number of false alarms.
By using all data at their disposal, through
their complex analyses, the company gets
new and valuable information concerning the
business environment and the competition.
This information help the company to better
understand the consumers’ behavior and to
meet their requirements, to properly manage
the threats and risks, to identify the opportun-
ities for income increase and cost decrease.
Gathering and storing large volumes of his-
torical data make discovering of patterns and
factors that are influencing the company’s
activity and making predictions about the
business future trend possible. Selecting the
relevant information, analyzing and structur-
ing them is difficult without BI systems, and
the results are often incomplete or late. Com-
panies using BI technologies have the great-
est chances successfully coping with all the
challenges of the competitive environment.
Without these solutions, the essential infor-
mation remains hidden in the continuous in-
creasing data volume that is permanently ac-
cumulated in the company. Without instru-
ments capable to analyze these data in a bet-
ter way, the identification of market trends,
the forecasting of the future evolution, estab-
lishing the necessary strategies remain much
more intuitive than based on pertinent ana-
lyses. Moreover, the results of these intuitive
analyses cannot be timely obtained, and ob-
taining them later makes them less relevant.
Turning information into a strategic resource
represents one of the managers’ major prob-
lems. Through its capability of providing the
necessary information for continuing to stay
on an extremely competitive market, BI be-
comes a principal attribute of the strategy of
more and more companies.
As time passes, companies gather an ever
larger data volume. The transactional sys-
tems and the classical database solutions do
not provide the necessary support for com-
plex analyses. They are developed for the
operational activities of the company, while
the BI solutions are developed for improving
the analysis process. The information are in-
tegrated and organized in structures that re-
spond to the requirements of complex data
analyses, reporting and forecasting, in order
to make the best decisions, to achieve effi-
cient activities and to obtain consistent re-
sults.
Not long ago, only some departments in a
company were using BI applications. This
situation is rapidly changing, by developing
and acquiring systems that cover all of the
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
141
company’s functions. The new systems ex-
tend the BI’s advantages to all participants to
the business: employees, shareholders, cus-
tomers, providers and other business part-
ners. This way, making the information
available for all the interested users, an in-
formation democracy is established in the en-
tire company and even outside the company.
The most important factors that influence the
BI are: the customers, the competitors, the
business partners, the economic environment
and the internal operations [WIKI06].
The customers represent the most important
problem in ensuring the company’s success.
The company has no purpose without its cus-
tomers. The new worldwide economic con-
text focuses on customers. That’s why it is
very important for the company to have cur-
rent information about customers’ prefe-
rences. The company must be capable to
adapt quickly at the changes in customers’
requirements. The BI enables the acquisition
of information concerning market evolution
and provides directions of action for creating
innovative and high quality products and ser-
vices, that anticipate future customers’ re-
quirements.
The competitors can be an important ob-
stacle on the way to success. Their aims are
the same with those of the company’s, that is
to maximize profit and increase customer sa-
tisfaction. In order to be succesful, the com-
pany has to be one step ahead of its competi-
tors. The BI provides valuable information
concerning the competitors’ actions, so that
fully aware decisions could be made.
The business partners have to dispose of
the same strategic information, in order not
to have problems of communication which
can produce disfunctionalities. It is common
for a company to enable its providers to view
its inventories and other information of
common interest, in order to improve the
supply chain management. With the BI sys-
tems the company can share the information
with its business partners.
The economic environment, such as the
economy’s state and other key indicators,
weights significantly in making business de-
cisions. Nobody wants to launch new prod-
ucts during an economic recession. The BI
provides information about the economic
conditions so that managers can make pru-
dent decisions concerning the most suitable
moment for business expansion or contrac-
tion.
The internal operations are activities,
which occur daily in the company. The deci-
sion makers must have deep knowledge
about the entire company’s activity. It is
possible to have negative results for the busi-
ness if the decisions are made without know-
ing the entire activity.
The BI systems are pursuing a better under-
standing of the business processes that take
place in the company. To achieve this pur-
pose they are turning the data from various
sources into useful information. Then the in-
formation are turned into knowledge that is
used to decide the actions to succeed. The ac-
tions undertaken produce new data and in-
formation, which are used to enrich the
knowledge and to improve the business
processes.
4. Business Intelligence technologies
The BI solutions use various applications and
technologies to gather, store, access, analyze
and deliver the data in an easy and useful
manner. These products facilitate the busi-
ness performance management and help in
making better decisions, providing on time
up to date, reliable and relevant information.
The BI systems are integrated systems, which
comprise in their architecture some of the
most advanced information technologies: da-
ta warehouse, ETL (Extract, Transform,
Load) and EAI (Enterprise Application Inte-
gration) instruments, OLAP (On Line Ana-
lytical Processing) and data mining tools, are
some examples of technologies capable to
provide integration, storing, analyzing and
reporting functions. They have to cover the
whole process of turning data into informa-
tion and knowledge: data gathering, clean-
sing, integration and storing, predictive ana-
lyses, querying and reporting. On the other
hand, these systems are open to the new
technologies that can be developed.
The data warehouse concept represents a
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142
logical architectural approach for extracting
the operational data and turning them into
accurate historical information, in order to
help the decision process. The data ware-
house technology enables the integrating and
the storing of large data volumes, both from
internal and external sources. The fundamen-
tal criterion for data organization in a data
warehouse is the subject (the business line).
The purpose of such a system is to provide to
the analysts an integrated and consistent view
over the relevant data of the organization.
The development of a data warehouse
represents a complex process that involves
more activities, depending on the used work-
ing methodology, from the identification of
the users’ requirements to the deployment of
the system [VEMA07c]. The data warehouse
development has to be thought of as a conti-
nuous process, which is evolving at sink with
the organization. On the basis of the data sys-
tematized and consolidated in such reposito-
ries, the analysts can make complex analyses
concerning the company’s performance, can
identify various correlations among data,
trends for estimating the future evolution, as
well as solutions for improving the carried
out activities [VEMA07b].
OLAP is an essential component of a BI
platform, the most used analysis method.
Making complex analyses of historical data,
the OLAP instruments enable the identifica-
tion of meaningful trends. By understanding
the factors that influence the business
processes and by extrapolating the identified
trends, the decidents can establish the most
adequate strategies for the company’s devel-
opment.
An OLAP instrument is a combination of
analytical processing procedures and graphic
presentation (the user’s interface). OLAP in-
struments enable complex computations and
provide users with the possibility to access
and analyse large data volumes, the relations
among them, and to present the data from
various views (a multidimensional outlook of
data). They provide the possibility of com-
plex analyses, such as time series, graphs,
extrapolations, statistical analyses and what-
if analyses. The analytical processing proce-
dures are methods for the identification of the
information needed in the decision process.
The interfaces that are used are based on the
multidimensional presentation of the data and
enable their fast and interactive analysis
through particular operations as drill-down,
roll-up, slice, dice and pivoting. These opera-
tions enable the users to see the data in many
ways, from various views, without the need
of requiring them.
Data mining represents the activity of data
extracting and analyzing for discovering in-
formation that are hidden or more difficult to
be observed with other instruments. With the
help of this technology, relations and correla-
tions can be identified among certain data or
data sets. Data mining instruments enable the
users to explore and analyze large data vo-
lume, in order to discover patterns, rules and
trends, by using statistical, mathematical and
forms recognition techniques.
Data mining is a technology that uses com-
plex algorithms for data analyzing and disco-
vering valuable information for the decision
makers and analysts. Thus, special algo-
rithms are used, such as fuzzy logic, neural
networks, induction, clustering, that correlate
the information from the data warehouse and
support the analysis and decision process. By
means of statistical analysis or artificial intel-
ligence methods, the data mining techniques
enable the users to identify patterns, rules
and correlations among data and to create
predictive models which can anticipate beha-
viors or events on the basis of the trends hig-
hlighted in the data.
OLAP technology provides analyses based
on models, having a retrospective nature, and
the user must understand how to explore the
data. Data mining has a prospective nature
and provides analyses based on data. The in-
formation says something about itself with-
out asking any question. While OLAP orga-
nizes the data into a model built in order to
be explored by analysts, data mining analyses
the data in order to provide useful informa-
tion for forecasting and making decisions.
Thus, the analysts can discover data correla-
tions that are hidden or too complex to be
identified by means of the common statistical
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
143
techniques.
OLAP, data mining and data warehouse
technologies cooperate with each other. They
provide the information in a flexible, interac-
tive and consistent manner, turning the huge
data volume stored in the data warehouse in-
to useful information for the decision makers.
BI is a concept which brings important
changes for the companies, on the basis of in-
ternational standards and best practices, with
major implications on the information sys-
tem, but also on the organizational structure,
the institutional culture and the business
processes. Some of its advantages are:
increasing the usage of systems and infor-
mation;
decreasing the efforts for realizing the ad-
ministrative tasks;
the growth of labor productivity;
providing high quality, homogeneous and
coherent data;
building and developing advanced plat-
forms for information reporting and man-
agement;
the management and the integration of da-
ta models;
the possibility of defining multiple busi-
ness rules and tracking their compliance at
every hierarchical level;
monitoring the results, highlighting the
trends, the threats and opportunities;
analysing performances against the goals
established in order to make possible to take
measures for timely adopting the strategies to
the current conditions;
fast response to market changes, anticipat-
ing them and their impact on the business;
helping the decision process and adopting
proactive managerial actions.
A BI solution does not contain only one ap-
plication, but a set of software components
that interact in order to extract the data from
the source systems, to clean, integrate and
store them in a single and consistent manner,
to make complex analyses and to provide the
results in time, in an aggregated and unders-
tandable manner.
The software components of a BI solution
can be classified into the following catego-
ries: for data extracting and transforming, for
data cleansing, for data loading and refresh-
ing, for data accessing, for ensuring data se-
curity, for version control and configuration
management, for data backup and recovery,
for performance monitoring, for platform
management, for data modeling, for metadata
management [VEMA07d].
Through the BI solutions, the available data
contribute to the increasing of the value add-
ed within the company and to improve the re-
lationships with the customers and providers.
BI enables a more accurate understanding of
the current situation and provides a global
view of the company’s performances. There-
fore, these systems represent the mechanism
for turning data into decisions of acting. No-
wadays, in the conditions of an increasingly
more global, competitive, complex and dy-
namic economy, the implementation of a BI
solution tends to provide more than a com-
petitive advantage and becomes more and
more of a condition to survive on the market.
On the other hand, the capability to realize
predictive analyses makes possible a fast re-
turn of investments made in BI systems.
They enable the company to forecast and
manage correctly the customers’ require-
ments and not only to react to them, and con-
tribute to the revenues growth. In the same
time, several ways for effective reducing the
costs can be established on the basis of pre-
dictive analyses. Otherwise, the costs reduc-
ing within a company’s area may induce their
growing within another area, with negative
impact on the global profit.
5. Business Intelligence – an instrument
for assisting the decision process
A BI system is structured on three levels: the
operational reporting level, the analyzing and
modeling level and the strategic level. The
operational level is based on the concept of
management through objectives, exceptions
and facts, according to which a manager
must permanently know the status of the
business process in comparison to the objec-
tives established and to be informed when
any deviation appears, in order to be able to
make the proper decisions at the right time.
The analyzing level assists the area of bud-
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144
geting, reporting, financial analysis, cost
analysis on activities, and at the strategic
level the company’s strategy and mission are
formulated, the strategic indicators are moni-
tored, as well as the cause-effect relationship
among them.
For supporting such a system, from the in-
formation point of view, data warehousing
solutions are used for transactional data con-
solidation and reconciliation. Beside these
solutions, more applications and instruments
were developed to process this information
and provide the possibility tof realize com-
plex analyses concerning the company’s ac-
tivity.
The BI systems ensure:
provision of high quality information to all
the users, at the right time;
performance evaluation and exceptions
identification;
forecasts based on plans and results that
are permanently updated.
BI ensures key analyses for all the functional
domains of the company: finance, produc-
tion, procurement, supply, marketing, human
resources. By its help, it is possible to make
[MICR04]:
• Marketing analyses, which use informa-
tion about customers, and sales, price sensi-
tivity and the favorites products. The usage
of this information leads to a better planning
of the marketing campaigns and to the de-
termining of their efficiency.
• Sale analyses, through which trends are
discovered, seasonality is analyzed, and as-
sociations among groups of customers and
products are made. This information contri-
butes to settle the sale targets and to analyze
the acquired results.
• Supply chain analyses, by tracking the data
concerning the orders, deliveries and inven-
tories. Thus, a better inventory planning can
be realized, the most proper price promotion
and the delivery schedule can be established.
• Scorecard applications, which define key
performance indicators computed on the base
of the information from the existing systems.
The company’s global performance or the
performance as in comparison to other simi-
lar entities can be tracked by means of these
applications.
• Financial analyses, which can determine
the efficiency of every department, category
of products, geographical regions or seasons.
The financial institutions (banks, assurance
or leasing companies) represent the most
eloquent example for the key role that finan-
cial analysis plays in the company’s activity:
defining the products and services, loan port-
folio analysis etc.
• Budget planning that provides different va-
riants and supports the choice of the best so-
lution.
• Support and customer relationship centers,
which enable to analyze the rate of telemar-
keting campaigns’ success, the customers’
complaints, the incidents that have occurred
etc.
• Geospatial analyses that combine business
information with geographical and demo-
graphic information in order to identify pat-
terns and trends.
• Project management analyses, that analyse
the project portfolio, the resource allocation
and the meeting of the deadlines.
To make the best decisions, the information
must be included in an updating, processing
and analyzing flow. To increase the business
performance, today’s managers need com-
plete information that integrates transactional
applications such as ERP (Enterprise Re-
source Planning), CRM (Customer Relation-
ship Management) and SCM (Supply Chain
Management) with BI applications and in-
struments that enable the analyses of the dai-
ly activity, the comparison of the achieved
performance with the organization’s strategy,
as well as a better administration of the entire
management process.
The usage of the BI systems provides the
company’s management with both an instru-
ment for assisting the decision process and a
performance control tool.
The need for managerial reporting and com-
plex analyses represents an important re-
quirement for any company that acts in a
competitive environment. Starting from the
complex reports provided by the BI solu-
tions, the deficient processes can be identi-
fied and corrected and even the logic of some
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
145
activities’ carrying out can be changed in or-
der to respond to the company’s performance
and efficiency requirements. BI is no longer
just an option, an in vogue solution. It has
become a necessary and mandatory solution
at every organizational level of the compa-
nies that want to get relevant information and
knowledge concerning the business environ-
ment they act in. The purpose is to preserve
and improve their position in a competitive
and increasingly more aggressive environ-
ment with faster and faster information
flows.
BI systems filter the information and delivery
them in a customized way to those who need
them. Each user has the right to access only
the information he needs, depending on his
professional responsibilities and compe-
tences. Thus, a general manager may use a
dashboard with the most important indicators
concerning the company’s activity; financial
statistics and analyses can be realized in the
financial and accounting department; analys-
es concerning the customers, their prefe-
rences and the actions that can lead to their
loyalty are made in the marketing depart-
ment; the level of customers’ content con-
cerning the company’s products and services
can be measured in a call center and so forth.
BI systems provide many advantages to the
companies which use them. They provide the
possibility to make decisions based on accu-
rate and actual information, leading to global
performance improving. They also limit the
work based on intuition, contribute to the
improvement of the communication among
departments and to the coordination of the
activities, and they enable companies to re-
spond faster to the changes of the financial
conditions, customers’ preferences, supply
chains etc.
6. Conclusions
In conclusion, we can state that Business In-
telligence represents the ability of gaining
competitive advantages by judiciously ex-
ploring information. BI is a management,
controlling, analyzing, reporting and fore-
casting system. Analyzing large data vo-
lumes, extracting the relevant information
and turning them into knowledge, the most
appropriate actions can be established for the
continuous development of the company. In
the competitive business environment, the
rapid adjustment to the market requirements
represents the only way the company can ac-
quire advantages over its competitors. BI
enables the usage of all the information the
company holds, to proactively respond at the
changes within the economic environment,
being the guarantee of the business success.
Concerning the future BI solutions, the users’
request for more diversified, faster and more
effective services is to be noticed. Companies
will need solutions able to cope with future
events. The users begin to demand the capa-
bility of real time analyses of the business
data. The monthly and even weekly analyses
will be not enough any longer. That’s why
Charles Nicholls, CEO of See Why, a British
software company, said that business users
do not want to wait to get information, and
the information must be always available and
never out of date.
The future means real time complex analys-
es, reporting, forecasting and data manage-
ment. Accessing the relevant information in
real time represents a critical point for assur-
ing the success of the business. Its impor-
tance has grown along with the Internet de-
velopment, with the growth of data sources
number and their transmission speed. It is
supposed that in the not too distant future
companies will become dependent on real
time business information, which will have to
be obtained easily. Moreover, the future will
belong to Web-based solutions, which will be
able to provide information to a large number
of users, both inside and outside the compa-
ny. This is because BI has become a strategic
initiative, and companies must share the in-
formation with an increasingly larger number
of partners. In this sense, it is considered that
BI will become part of business innovation.
Sharing information with customers, provid-
ers, shareholders and other people interested
in that business will increase loyalty and will
give competitive advantages.
References
[GART06] Gartner Group, Press release,
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
146
2006, www.gartner.com
[MICR04] Microsoft, Microsoft Solution for
Business Intelligence, White paper, 2004,
www.microsoft.com
[VELU06] M. Velicanu, I. Lungu, S. Iones-
cu, Systems Development for Intelligent Bu-
siness, in Social Science Research Network,
2006, www.ssrn.com
[VEMA07a] M. Velicanu, Gh. Matei, Data-
bases versus Data Warehouses, Proceedings
of the 8
th
International Conference on Infor-
matics in Economy, pp. 150-156, Academy
of Economic Studies, ASE Publishing
House, Bucharest, 2007
[VEMA07b] M. Velicanu, Gh. Matei, As-
pecte comparative între baze de date ?i depo-
zite de date, Economic Computation and
Economic Cybernetics Studies and Research,
No. 2/2007, pp. 103-109, ASE Publishing
House, Bucharest
[VEMA07c] M. Velicanu, Gh. Matei, Build-
ing a Data Warehouse Step by Step, Econo-
my Informatics Review, No. 2 (42), 2007,
pp. 83-89, Inforec Printing House, Bucharest
[VEMA07d] M. Velicanu, Gh. Matei, Activi-
t??i pentru realizarea depozitelor de date,
Economic Computation and Economic Cy-
bernetics Studies and Research, No. 3/2007,
pp. 95-106, ASE Publishing House, Bucha-
rest
[WIKI06] Wikipedia Encyclopedia, Business
Intelligence, 2006, www.en.wikipedia.org
doc_888376099.pdf
To succeed in the context of a global and dynamic economic environment, the companies must use all the information they have, as efficiently as possible
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
138
A Few Implementation Solutions for Business Intelligence
Manole VELICANU
Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, România
Gheorghe MATEI, Romanian Commercial Bank
To succeed in the context of a global and dynamic economic environment, the compa-
nies must use all the information they have, as efficiently as possible, in order to gain compet-
itive advantages and to consolidate their position on the market. They have to respond quick-
ly to the changes in the business environment and to adapt themselves to the market’s re-
quirements. To achieve these goals, the companies must use modern informatics technologies
for data acquiring, storing, accessing and analyzing. These technologies are to be integrated
into innovative solutions, such as Business Intelligence systems, which can help managers to
better control the business practices and processes, to improve the company’s performance
and to conserve it’s competitive advantages.
Keywords: Business Intelligence, competitive advantage, OLAP, data mining, key perfor-
mance indicators.
Introduction
In today’s context of a competitive eco-
nomic environment which is permanently
changing, the ability to use intelligent infor-
mation in order to cope with the challenges
and to benefit for the opportunities represents
an essential condition for any company that
wants not only to stay on the market, but also
to consolidate its position. In any organiza-
tion, there is a large volume of data concern-
ing production indicators, financial reports,
data about sales, balance sheets, forecasts etc.
In spite of this, the managers are frequently
missing information of high quality, timely
updated, in order to make the best decisions.
To remain competitive in the global competi-
tive economy, companies have to adapt
themselves to any action of the market, to re-
spond dynamically to the changes in the
business environment and customers’ re-
quirements. Moreover, they have to antic-
ipate the changes inside and outside the in-
dustry they are acting in and quickly make
the adequate decisions. Making fast business
decisions, based on reliable information, is
essential for any company. That is why they
must have proper instruments to intercept
immediately the changes in the economic,
social, legislative and administrative envi-
ronment, to analyze them and to make the
proper decisions as soon as possible. Compa-
nies must permanently know which are the
most highly demanded products on the mar-
ket, which are the most profitable customers,
what new products and services they should
provide if they want to stay efficient. Beside
competitiveness, companies must permanent-
ly be concerned with the optimization of their
value chains and the enhancement of the de-
cision process. For achieving these goals,
they must implement some solutions, which
are capable to offer management an overview
of the organization at a certain moment, as
well as projections on different periods. Such
solutions must be capable to assist the deci-
sion process in order to make coherent and
well based strategies. These solutions must
provide answers to “what-if” questions and
to find patterns to guide strategic decisions
making.
2. The role and goals of Business Intelli-
gence
These goals cannot be achieved without the
help of information technologies, especially
Business Intelligence solutions. This term
was proposed in 1989 by Howard Dresner
who, at that time, was a researcher at Gartner
Group. He defined Business Intelligence as
“a set of concepts and methods for improving
the decision process, using support systems
based on facts”.
Business Intelligence (BI) is an information
technology dealing with the structure, func-
1
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
139
tioning and management of organizations, by
using the computational technique. The suc-
cess of a company relies on information. BI
is a systematic process of collecting, analyz-
ing and disseminating information. That sets
to achieve or conserve competitive advantag-
es, preventing deviations in the company’s
activity and grabbing the opportunities on the
market. BI consists of a set of applications
and technologies for data storing, accessing
and analyzing, in order to help users make
better decisions.
In the article [VELU06] more goals of BI
are presented, among which we can mention:
providing business solutions at law costs,
which can give advantages to the company;
easy and fast data access for numerous and
diverse users;
providing the technological support for da-
ta analyses;
building a collaborative environment;
providing an open and scalable frame-
work.
These solutions enable the intelligent usage
and interpretation of business information.
With their help, the users can better control
the business practices and processes and ana-
lyze the performance indicators. Decisions
are more efficient if the information about
the business environment and competitors are
analyzed with such applications, which pro-
vide capabilities of extrapolation and making
correct forecasts concerning the future eco-
nomic trends and conditions. They offer
companies and users on all the hierarchical
levels a solid, complete and powerful tech-
nology for extracting, from a large volume of
data, the key information, relevant and useful
for decision process and business control.
Knowing all the aspects of the business and
understanding both the factors having a posi-
tive influence and, especially, those having a
negative impact, represents an important re-
quirement for performance improvement and
company’s increase on the market. By using
the new information technologies, the com-
panies learn what has happened in their busi-
ness, why it has happened and what will hap-
pen. All these things, together with the users’
experience and intuition, lead to gaining
competitive advantages [VEMA07a]. At the
same time, BI solutions contribute to the eli-
mination of communication barriers inside
the company and enable decisions making on
the basis of consistent information and colla-
borative support.
Thus, BI has a crucial role in consolidating
the company’s position on the market, im-
plementing the best practices and improving
the business processes, and helping the com-
pany become more competitive and efficient.
Nowadays, the company’s performance de-
pends more and more on the level of adapta-
tion of the information systems to the general
purposes of the organization. A powerful BI
platform ensures fast data access and pro-
vides capabilities of performance analyses,
getting synthetic information concerning
both its own business and competitors’ busi-
ness. It aims to improve the quality of infor-
mation concerning:
market conditions and future trends;
company’s position in comparison to the
one of its competitors;
company’s capabilities;
the social, legislative and political envi-
ronment;
how other companies operate on the mar-
ket;
changes in customers’ behavior etc.
On the basis of this information companies
can decide on the proper measures for the
necessary adjustments in order to conserve
and extend its position on the market.
The concept of BI originates from the execu-
tive information systems in the early 1990s.
The BI systems are composed of more in-
struments which allow to access the relevant
information of the organization and to
present it in a meaningful form. Their pur-
pose is to achieve competent analyses con-
cerning the company’s activity, and to turn
the information into knowledge that can help
the decision process, so that the decided ac-
tions contribute to the organization’s success.
More and more managers of the business en-
vironment think that BI has become a vital
instrument meant to help the company to
achieve strategic goals, performance en-
hancement and improve the decisions and the
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
140
strategic development plans.
The worldwide market of the BI solutions is
raising significantly. A survey made by Gart-
ner Group in 2006 on a sample of 1400 com-
panies found that BI area was considered the
first technological priority. This year, the
revenues from selling BI licenses were esti-
mated at $2.5 billion, with 6% more than in
the previous year [GART06]. For the first
time, BI has become the leader in the tech-
nological priorities of the organizations, in-
stead of the information security which held
this position for years.
In 2009, worldwide BI sales will total $3 bil-
lion, with an average annual growth rate of
7.3%. While the growing in the developed
countries will be between 6.3 – 6.9%, on the
emergent markets it will be between 11.3 –
11.6% yearly.
3. Business Intelligence contribution to
the business processes improvement
The optimization and automatization of the
business process by the help of BI systems
contribute to the enhancement of the decision
system, and offer a global view of the entire
activity. BI solutions are present in all do-
mains. Most of them include financial ana-
lyses, analysis of current and potential cus-
tomers, sales and marketing campaign effi-
ciency etc. They contribute to attracting cus-
tomers and to making them loyal, and to
building a long term partnership, a better
management of their requirements, the iden-
tification of new customer and product seg-
ments, fraud detection and operational risk
management. A study conducted by Europe
VISA in 2005, based on the monitoring of
seven European banks which issue Visa
cards, found that the usage of BI solutions
has reduced frauds from 4576 to 458 cases
monthly, also substantially decreasing the
number of false alarms.
By using all data at their disposal, through
their complex analyses, the company gets
new and valuable information concerning the
business environment and the competition.
This information help the company to better
understand the consumers’ behavior and to
meet their requirements, to properly manage
the threats and risks, to identify the opportun-
ities for income increase and cost decrease.
Gathering and storing large volumes of his-
torical data make discovering of patterns and
factors that are influencing the company’s
activity and making predictions about the
business future trend possible. Selecting the
relevant information, analyzing and structur-
ing them is difficult without BI systems, and
the results are often incomplete or late. Com-
panies using BI technologies have the great-
est chances successfully coping with all the
challenges of the competitive environment.
Without these solutions, the essential infor-
mation remains hidden in the continuous in-
creasing data volume that is permanently ac-
cumulated in the company. Without instru-
ments capable to analyze these data in a bet-
ter way, the identification of market trends,
the forecasting of the future evolution, estab-
lishing the necessary strategies remain much
more intuitive than based on pertinent ana-
lyses. Moreover, the results of these intuitive
analyses cannot be timely obtained, and ob-
taining them later makes them less relevant.
Turning information into a strategic resource
represents one of the managers’ major prob-
lems. Through its capability of providing the
necessary information for continuing to stay
on an extremely competitive market, BI be-
comes a principal attribute of the strategy of
more and more companies.
As time passes, companies gather an ever
larger data volume. The transactional sys-
tems and the classical database solutions do
not provide the necessary support for com-
plex analyses. They are developed for the
operational activities of the company, while
the BI solutions are developed for improving
the analysis process. The information are in-
tegrated and organized in structures that re-
spond to the requirements of complex data
analyses, reporting and forecasting, in order
to make the best decisions, to achieve effi-
cient activities and to obtain consistent re-
sults.
Not long ago, only some departments in a
company were using BI applications. This
situation is rapidly changing, by developing
and acquiring systems that cover all of the
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
141
company’s functions. The new systems ex-
tend the BI’s advantages to all participants to
the business: employees, shareholders, cus-
tomers, providers and other business part-
ners. This way, making the information
available for all the interested users, an in-
formation democracy is established in the en-
tire company and even outside the company.
The most important factors that influence the
BI are: the customers, the competitors, the
business partners, the economic environment
and the internal operations [WIKI06].
The customers represent the most important
problem in ensuring the company’s success.
The company has no purpose without its cus-
tomers. The new worldwide economic con-
text focuses on customers. That’s why it is
very important for the company to have cur-
rent information about customers’ prefe-
rences. The company must be capable to
adapt quickly at the changes in customers’
requirements. The BI enables the acquisition
of information concerning market evolution
and provides directions of action for creating
innovative and high quality products and ser-
vices, that anticipate future customers’ re-
quirements.
The competitors can be an important ob-
stacle on the way to success. Their aims are
the same with those of the company’s, that is
to maximize profit and increase customer sa-
tisfaction. In order to be succesful, the com-
pany has to be one step ahead of its competi-
tors. The BI provides valuable information
concerning the competitors’ actions, so that
fully aware decisions could be made.
The business partners have to dispose of
the same strategic information, in order not
to have problems of communication which
can produce disfunctionalities. It is common
for a company to enable its providers to view
its inventories and other information of
common interest, in order to improve the
supply chain management. With the BI sys-
tems the company can share the information
with its business partners.
The economic environment, such as the
economy’s state and other key indicators,
weights significantly in making business de-
cisions. Nobody wants to launch new prod-
ucts during an economic recession. The BI
provides information about the economic
conditions so that managers can make pru-
dent decisions concerning the most suitable
moment for business expansion or contrac-
tion.
The internal operations are activities,
which occur daily in the company. The deci-
sion makers must have deep knowledge
about the entire company’s activity. It is
possible to have negative results for the busi-
ness if the decisions are made without know-
ing the entire activity.
The BI systems are pursuing a better under-
standing of the business processes that take
place in the company. To achieve this pur-
pose they are turning the data from various
sources into useful information. Then the in-
formation are turned into knowledge that is
used to decide the actions to succeed. The ac-
tions undertaken produce new data and in-
formation, which are used to enrich the
knowledge and to improve the business
processes.
4. Business Intelligence technologies
The BI solutions use various applications and
technologies to gather, store, access, analyze
and deliver the data in an easy and useful
manner. These products facilitate the busi-
ness performance management and help in
making better decisions, providing on time
up to date, reliable and relevant information.
The BI systems are integrated systems, which
comprise in their architecture some of the
most advanced information technologies: da-
ta warehouse, ETL (Extract, Transform,
Load) and EAI (Enterprise Application Inte-
gration) instruments, OLAP (On Line Ana-
lytical Processing) and data mining tools, are
some examples of technologies capable to
provide integration, storing, analyzing and
reporting functions. They have to cover the
whole process of turning data into informa-
tion and knowledge: data gathering, clean-
sing, integration and storing, predictive ana-
lyses, querying and reporting. On the other
hand, these systems are open to the new
technologies that can be developed.
The data warehouse concept represents a
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
142
logical architectural approach for extracting
the operational data and turning them into
accurate historical information, in order to
help the decision process. The data ware-
house technology enables the integrating and
the storing of large data volumes, both from
internal and external sources. The fundamen-
tal criterion for data organization in a data
warehouse is the subject (the business line).
The purpose of such a system is to provide to
the analysts an integrated and consistent view
over the relevant data of the organization.
The development of a data warehouse
represents a complex process that involves
more activities, depending on the used work-
ing methodology, from the identification of
the users’ requirements to the deployment of
the system [VEMA07c]. The data warehouse
development has to be thought of as a conti-
nuous process, which is evolving at sink with
the organization. On the basis of the data sys-
tematized and consolidated in such reposito-
ries, the analysts can make complex analyses
concerning the company’s performance, can
identify various correlations among data,
trends for estimating the future evolution, as
well as solutions for improving the carried
out activities [VEMA07b].
OLAP is an essential component of a BI
platform, the most used analysis method.
Making complex analyses of historical data,
the OLAP instruments enable the identifica-
tion of meaningful trends. By understanding
the factors that influence the business
processes and by extrapolating the identified
trends, the decidents can establish the most
adequate strategies for the company’s devel-
opment.
An OLAP instrument is a combination of
analytical processing procedures and graphic
presentation (the user’s interface). OLAP in-
struments enable complex computations and
provide users with the possibility to access
and analyse large data volumes, the relations
among them, and to present the data from
various views (a multidimensional outlook of
data). They provide the possibility of com-
plex analyses, such as time series, graphs,
extrapolations, statistical analyses and what-
if analyses. The analytical processing proce-
dures are methods for the identification of the
information needed in the decision process.
The interfaces that are used are based on the
multidimensional presentation of the data and
enable their fast and interactive analysis
through particular operations as drill-down,
roll-up, slice, dice and pivoting. These opera-
tions enable the users to see the data in many
ways, from various views, without the need
of requiring them.
Data mining represents the activity of data
extracting and analyzing for discovering in-
formation that are hidden or more difficult to
be observed with other instruments. With the
help of this technology, relations and correla-
tions can be identified among certain data or
data sets. Data mining instruments enable the
users to explore and analyze large data vo-
lume, in order to discover patterns, rules and
trends, by using statistical, mathematical and
forms recognition techniques.
Data mining is a technology that uses com-
plex algorithms for data analyzing and disco-
vering valuable information for the decision
makers and analysts. Thus, special algo-
rithms are used, such as fuzzy logic, neural
networks, induction, clustering, that correlate
the information from the data warehouse and
support the analysis and decision process. By
means of statistical analysis or artificial intel-
ligence methods, the data mining techniques
enable the users to identify patterns, rules
and correlations among data and to create
predictive models which can anticipate beha-
viors or events on the basis of the trends hig-
hlighted in the data.
OLAP technology provides analyses based
on models, having a retrospective nature, and
the user must understand how to explore the
data. Data mining has a prospective nature
and provides analyses based on data. The in-
formation says something about itself with-
out asking any question. While OLAP orga-
nizes the data into a model built in order to
be explored by analysts, data mining analyses
the data in order to provide useful informa-
tion for forecasting and making decisions.
Thus, the analysts can discover data correla-
tions that are hidden or too complex to be
identified by means of the common statistical
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
143
techniques.
OLAP, data mining and data warehouse
technologies cooperate with each other. They
provide the information in a flexible, interac-
tive and consistent manner, turning the huge
data volume stored in the data warehouse in-
to useful information for the decision makers.
BI is a concept which brings important
changes for the companies, on the basis of in-
ternational standards and best practices, with
major implications on the information sys-
tem, but also on the organizational structure,
the institutional culture and the business
processes. Some of its advantages are:
increasing the usage of systems and infor-
mation;
decreasing the efforts for realizing the ad-
ministrative tasks;
the growth of labor productivity;
providing high quality, homogeneous and
coherent data;
building and developing advanced plat-
forms for information reporting and man-
agement;
the management and the integration of da-
ta models;
the possibility of defining multiple busi-
ness rules and tracking their compliance at
every hierarchical level;
monitoring the results, highlighting the
trends, the threats and opportunities;
analysing performances against the goals
established in order to make possible to take
measures for timely adopting the strategies to
the current conditions;
fast response to market changes, anticipat-
ing them and their impact on the business;
helping the decision process and adopting
proactive managerial actions.
A BI solution does not contain only one ap-
plication, but a set of software components
that interact in order to extract the data from
the source systems, to clean, integrate and
store them in a single and consistent manner,
to make complex analyses and to provide the
results in time, in an aggregated and unders-
tandable manner.
The software components of a BI solution
can be classified into the following catego-
ries: for data extracting and transforming, for
data cleansing, for data loading and refresh-
ing, for data accessing, for ensuring data se-
curity, for version control and configuration
management, for data backup and recovery,
for performance monitoring, for platform
management, for data modeling, for metadata
management [VEMA07d].
Through the BI solutions, the available data
contribute to the increasing of the value add-
ed within the company and to improve the re-
lationships with the customers and providers.
BI enables a more accurate understanding of
the current situation and provides a global
view of the company’s performances. There-
fore, these systems represent the mechanism
for turning data into decisions of acting. No-
wadays, in the conditions of an increasingly
more global, competitive, complex and dy-
namic economy, the implementation of a BI
solution tends to provide more than a com-
petitive advantage and becomes more and
more of a condition to survive on the market.
On the other hand, the capability to realize
predictive analyses makes possible a fast re-
turn of investments made in BI systems.
They enable the company to forecast and
manage correctly the customers’ require-
ments and not only to react to them, and con-
tribute to the revenues growth. In the same
time, several ways for effective reducing the
costs can be established on the basis of pre-
dictive analyses. Otherwise, the costs reduc-
ing within a company’s area may induce their
growing within another area, with negative
impact on the global profit.
5. Business Intelligence – an instrument
for assisting the decision process
A BI system is structured on three levels: the
operational reporting level, the analyzing and
modeling level and the strategic level. The
operational level is based on the concept of
management through objectives, exceptions
and facts, according to which a manager
must permanently know the status of the
business process in comparison to the objec-
tives established and to be informed when
any deviation appears, in order to be able to
make the proper decisions at the right time.
The analyzing level assists the area of bud-
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
144
geting, reporting, financial analysis, cost
analysis on activities, and at the strategic
level the company’s strategy and mission are
formulated, the strategic indicators are moni-
tored, as well as the cause-effect relationship
among them.
For supporting such a system, from the in-
formation point of view, data warehousing
solutions are used for transactional data con-
solidation and reconciliation. Beside these
solutions, more applications and instruments
were developed to process this information
and provide the possibility tof realize com-
plex analyses concerning the company’s ac-
tivity.
The BI systems ensure:
provision of high quality information to all
the users, at the right time;
performance evaluation and exceptions
identification;
forecasts based on plans and results that
are permanently updated.
BI ensures key analyses for all the functional
domains of the company: finance, produc-
tion, procurement, supply, marketing, human
resources. By its help, it is possible to make
[MICR04]:
• Marketing analyses, which use informa-
tion about customers, and sales, price sensi-
tivity and the favorites products. The usage
of this information leads to a better planning
of the marketing campaigns and to the de-
termining of their efficiency.
• Sale analyses, through which trends are
discovered, seasonality is analyzed, and as-
sociations among groups of customers and
products are made. This information contri-
butes to settle the sale targets and to analyze
the acquired results.
• Supply chain analyses, by tracking the data
concerning the orders, deliveries and inven-
tories. Thus, a better inventory planning can
be realized, the most proper price promotion
and the delivery schedule can be established.
• Scorecard applications, which define key
performance indicators computed on the base
of the information from the existing systems.
The company’s global performance or the
performance as in comparison to other simi-
lar entities can be tracked by means of these
applications.
• Financial analyses, which can determine
the efficiency of every department, category
of products, geographical regions or seasons.
The financial institutions (banks, assurance
or leasing companies) represent the most
eloquent example for the key role that finan-
cial analysis plays in the company’s activity:
defining the products and services, loan port-
folio analysis etc.
• Budget planning that provides different va-
riants and supports the choice of the best so-
lution.
• Support and customer relationship centers,
which enable to analyze the rate of telemar-
keting campaigns’ success, the customers’
complaints, the incidents that have occurred
etc.
• Geospatial analyses that combine business
information with geographical and demo-
graphic information in order to identify pat-
terns and trends.
• Project management analyses, that analyse
the project portfolio, the resource allocation
and the meeting of the deadlines.
To make the best decisions, the information
must be included in an updating, processing
and analyzing flow. To increase the business
performance, today’s managers need com-
plete information that integrates transactional
applications such as ERP (Enterprise Re-
source Planning), CRM (Customer Relation-
ship Management) and SCM (Supply Chain
Management) with BI applications and in-
struments that enable the analyses of the dai-
ly activity, the comparison of the achieved
performance with the organization’s strategy,
as well as a better administration of the entire
management process.
The usage of the BI systems provides the
company’s management with both an instru-
ment for assisting the decision process and a
performance control tool.
The need for managerial reporting and com-
plex analyses represents an important re-
quirement for any company that acts in a
competitive environment. Starting from the
complex reports provided by the BI solu-
tions, the deficient processes can be identi-
fied and corrected and even the logic of some
Revista Informatica Economic? nr.3(47)/2008
145
activities’ carrying out can be changed in or-
der to respond to the company’s performance
and efficiency requirements. BI is no longer
just an option, an in vogue solution. It has
become a necessary and mandatory solution
at every organizational level of the compa-
nies that want to get relevant information and
knowledge concerning the business environ-
ment they act in. The purpose is to preserve
and improve their position in a competitive
and increasingly more aggressive environ-
ment with faster and faster information
flows.
BI systems filter the information and delivery
them in a customized way to those who need
them. Each user has the right to access only
the information he needs, depending on his
professional responsibilities and compe-
tences. Thus, a general manager may use a
dashboard with the most important indicators
concerning the company’s activity; financial
statistics and analyses can be realized in the
financial and accounting department; analys-
es concerning the customers, their prefe-
rences and the actions that can lead to their
loyalty are made in the marketing depart-
ment; the level of customers’ content con-
cerning the company’s products and services
can be measured in a call center and so forth.
BI systems provide many advantages to the
companies which use them. They provide the
possibility to make decisions based on accu-
rate and actual information, leading to global
performance improving. They also limit the
work based on intuition, contribute to the
improvement of the communication among
departments and to the coordination of the
activities, and they enable companies to re-
spond faster to the changes of the financial
conditions, customers’ preferences, supply
chains etc.
6. Conclusions
In conclusion, we can state that Business In-
telligence represents the ability of gaining
competitive advantages by judiciously ex-
ploring information. BI is a management,
controlling, analyzing, reporting and fore-
casting system. Analyzing large data vo-
lumes, extracting the relevant information
and turning them into knowledge, the most
appropriate actions can be established for the
continuous development of the company. In
the competitive business environment, the
rapid adjustment to the market requirements
represents the only way the company can ac-
quire advantages over its competitors. BI
enables the usage of all the information the
company holds, to proactively respond at the
changes within the economic environment,
being the guarantee of the business success.
Concerning the future BI solutions, the users’
request for more diversified, faster and more
effective services is to be noticed. Companies
will need solutions able to cope with future
events. The users begin to demand the capa-
bility of real time analyses of the business
data. The monthly and even weekly analyses
will be not enough any longer. That’s why
Charles Nicholls, CEO of See Why, a British
software company, said that business users
do not want to wait to get information, and
the information must be always available and
never out of date.
The future means real time complex analys-
es, reporting, forecasting and data manage-
ment. Accessing the relevant information in
real time represents a critical point for assur-
ing the success of the business. Its impor-
tance has grown along with the Internet de-
velopment, with the growth of data sources
number and their transmission speed. It is
supposed that in the not too distant future
companies will become dependent on real
time business information, which will have to
be obtained easily. Moreover, the future will
belong to Web-based solutions, which will be
able to provide information to a large number
of users, both inside and outside the compa-
ny. This is because BI has become a strategic
initiative, and companies must share the in-
formation with an increasingly larger number
of partners. In this sense, it is considered that
BI will become part of business innovation.
Sharing information with customers, provid-
ers, shareholders and other people interested
in that business will increase loyalty and will
give competitive advantages.
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