Page 198 - DCAP307_PLANNING_AND_MANAGING_IT_INFRASTRUCTURE

Planning and Managing IT Infrastructure

Notes decisions. BI applications include the activities of decision support systems, query and reporting,
Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), statistical analysis, forecasting and data mining.
Business intelligence applications can be:

 Mission-critical and integral to an enterprise’s operations or occasional to meet a special
requirement

 Enterprise-wide or local to one division, department, or project
 Centrally initiated or driven by user demand
Business intelligence environment one also needs to effectively analyse and intuitively present
the right information, which enables them to take the right action, or make the right decisions.
Business Intelligence puts emphasis on the human element and the need for not just any
information, but the information that will benefit professionals and meet their quality
requirements.

12.1.1 Need of Business Intelligence

In today’s struggling economy with competition controlling and shrinking the landscape, it is
important to make sound business decisions based on complete data. With the proper Business
Intelligent implementation, businesses can make decisions and feel comfortable that they are
provided with the proper tools and data needed to believe in their decisions.

Did u know? Without the correct Business Intelligence solution even well planned and
executed data warehouse architectures can fail.
Business Intelligence is a decisions support system and database that can provide professionals
with the information they need to make the most effective decisions for their organisation. It
also provides data about the organisations details, such as customers, products and services.
Honestly, when a one can access this information rapidly and easily in order to take appropriate
action or make the right decision business success is realised.

12.1.2 Who uses Business Intelligence?

Business Intelligence is used to track a wide scope of unruly data. This data can be demographic
trends, product line profitability, fine tuning of pricing options, identifying of top customers,
and tracking product trends. That said we can come to the conclusion that most organisations
could benefit from business intelligence software. These organisations can include restaurant
chains, retail, or even professional sports teams.

Unfortunately business intelligence software and applications are not easily affordable, therefore
they are most commonly used in large corporations, rather then small business. Yet there are
new companies on the rise that are providing Business Intelligence applications to mid-sized
organisations for a some what affordable fee.

Notes There are so many benefits to having one of these systems that the price is worth it
if the organisation can fit the expense into their outgoing funds. Business Intelligence
tools can provide significant value when considering the benefit they will have to an
organisation.

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