Although many organizations have made significant investments in data collection and integration (through data warehouses and the like), it is a rare enterprise that can analyze and redeploy its accumulated data to actually drive business performance. In the years to come, as globalization and increased reliance on the Internet further complicate, accelerate and intensify marketplace conditions, actionable business intelligence promises to deliver a formidable competitive advantage to firms that leverage its power.
Business Intelligence:
Actionable Insights for Business Decision Makers
by Don Tapscott
Brought to you by Business Objects (an SAP company), SAP and Intel. Business Intelligence: 1 Actionable Insights for Business Decision Makers
Executive Summary These early systems helped organizations evaluate historic performance and modify current activities to ALTHOUGH MANY organizations have made significant pursue strategic goals. And while they provided investments in data collection and integration (through significant value, these systems were often constrained by data warehouses and the like), it is a rare enterprise that inherent challenges, such as complexity and data can analyze and redeploy its accumulated data to actually limitations-problems which continue to the present day. drive business performance. Adding to this conundrum is A 2007 survey of CIOs asked whether management the vast quantity of external data generated on the Internet, believed it had access to "the right information to run the where billions of connected individuals use the tools of business." A whopping sixty-four per cent of respondents wikinomics to actively participate in innovation, wealth 3replied "no." creation and social interaction. To gain greater business insight and transparency, organizations urgently require a As noted in my recent book, Wikinomics, historically, new generation of business intelligence (BI) tools and internal data has been accessible. Now, for the first time, it applications that will allow cross-enterprise, inter- is being supplemented by massive quantities of external enterprise and external data to be integrated and analyzed. data that is created as consumers and employees utilize the Companies that are able to effectively harness the copious new tools of mass collaboration (such as wikis, blogs and amounts of information IT systems generate will have the social networking sites) to actively participate in inside track on the competition: gaining better innovation, wealth creation and social interaction. The understanding of customer needs, identifying trends marriage of this newly accessible data with the firm's earlier, and using the resulting lead time to capitalize on traditional internal data presents an unprecedented opportunities. In the years to come, as globalization and opportunity to gain insight into the behavior of the increased reliance on the Internet further complicate, company's most important stakeholders and translate that accelerate and intensify marketplace conditions, knowledge into success in the marketplace. actionable business intelligence promises to deliver a Recently, the technology required to deliver powerful formidable competitive advantage to firms that leverage BI and insight utilizing this data has dramatically its power. improved. In this paper, we will examine how technological advances are enabling improved decision making across three broad dimensions: simplicity and 1.0 Value Proposition relevance, agility, and integration. Specifically, software Howard Gardner, professor of Cognition and Education at applications are becoming more usable and useful; the Harvard Graduate School of Education, defines inexpensive storage and processing power is helping to intelligence as "the ability to detect patterns and to detect manage and utilize data and sophisticated networks more 1changes in those patterns." Today's interpretation of effectively; and services-oriented applications are business intelligence is consistent with this definition. No allowing businesses to integrate data from disparate longer limited to the traditional and narrow development sources to provide deeper insight and, by extension, of "reports for users," BI now encompasses the use of data greater competitive advantage. to derive insight and gain a competitive advantage. In this Together, these three broad advances are helping to paper, we focus on how this is achievable. create BI solutions that allow information workers to BI technologies have been an important underpinning of make better-informed decisions that are more aligned with business success since the term was coined in 1989 to corporate objectives. Decision making and strategy describe a set of concepts and methods for improving formulation no longer rely solely on knowing "what decision making using fact-based support systems. From happened." Now, they can be supported by com... [download for more]
