For many businesses, new technologies are causing information overkill, leaving decision makers overwhelmed with insufficient, incorrect, and unreliable information. Indeed, the various acts of accessing and processing this information can tie up numerous resources. However, there are businesses that manage to provide their decision makers with processed and automatically consolidated raw data, presented in a clear, easy-to-understand format. These businesses provide perceptive information for quick, decision making. What do these businesses have? Business intelligence (BI) capabilities and processes.
What Is Business Intelligence?.
Business intelligence or BI is a term used to describe a variety of software and hardware vendors and information technology consultants that create infrastructure for warehousing integrating, reporting, and analyzing raw data that comes from the business environment.
Business Intelligence Vendors .
They consist of hardware and software packages sold predominantly by large system vendors to very large firms. The top five providers of these products are Oracle, SAP, IBM, Microsoft, and SAS. Microsoft's products are aimed at small to medium-sized firms, and they are based on desktop tools (such as Excel spreadsheet software), Microsoft SharePoint collaboration tools, and Microsoft SQL Server database software.
Prior to the implementation of a business intelligence system it is very important to thoroughly familiarize yourself with the requirements of your business. This can be done by conducting meetings with internal and external individuals of the business, such as (employees, managers, owners, customers, suppliers and other business associates). It is very important to gather all the requirements needed for success of your business intelligence system.
BI Environment.
There are six essentials in business intelligence environment data from the business environment, they are business intelligence infrastructure, managerial users and methods, delivery platforms, and user interface.
