Business Intelligence ( Bi )

The explosion of technology innovations within recent years has created a multitude of new and exciting ways for companies to conduct business. We now have technologies such as robotic manufacturing, electronic mail, online videoconferencing, and global networks to connect everyone and everything. Small and medium businesses are now able to cross all traditional boundaries that limited them in the past. Technology has fundamentally altered the way businesses are structured and changed the ways in which managers perform their duties. Communication is essential for any business and for a business to survive in this modern environment managers must effectively manage all of these technologies (Robbins, and Coulter 60).

This report is an analysis of business intelligence systems currently available to our business. As an introduction, I will address in general terms why we need to purchase a business intelligence system and how it will aid our business. Then I will discuss several applications in detail, paying particular attention to the information and analysis capabilities of each, and the hardware and software required for each. Finally, I will conclude with a short evaluation of the products discussed and offer a recommendation as to the best application for our business. I will pay particular attention to IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle.

As we discuss the possibility of emerging into business intelligence software we must keep in mind the overall purpose of using any type of software is to reach strategic goals in order to increase market shares. I will discuss how business intelligence software will allow us to meet those strategic goals. We will establish what type of information and analysis capabilities will be available once this business intelligence software is implemented. We will discuss hardware and system software that will be required to run specific business intelligence software. Lastly, I will give a brief synopsis on three vendors (IBM, Microsoft Microsoft and Oracle) that are dominating the business information software industry today.

The report focuses on data mining approach to predict human wine taste preferences. A large data set is considered with white and red wine samples (“Vinho Verde” wine from Portugal). The inputs include objective tests (e.g. PH values) and the output is based on sensory data (median of at least 3 evaluations made by wine experts). Each expert graded the wine quality between 0 (very bad) and 10 (very excellent). Due to privacy and logistic issues, only physicochemical (inputs) and sensory (the output) variables are available (e.g. there is no data about grape types, wine brand, wine selling price, etc.).

Business intelligence (BI) is defined as the set of techniques and tools for the transformation of raw data into meaningful and useful information for business analysis purposes. BI has been around long before computers and access to the internet. For example, an old ship building yard would have to keep track of its various transactions, employees, profit, suppliers, materials, etc. The shipyard owner would then turn this collected raw data into useful information in order to figure out where the company is going wrong and where it can improve. If the suppliers have not shipped on time for weeks the shipyard would know to find more reliable suppliers - this is a very simple example of utilizing business intelligence. In

Business intelligence (BI) is a technology-based procedure for analysing data and giving decision based information to help corporate executives, business managers and other end users make more informed business decisions. BI comprises a variety of tools, applications and methodologies that enable organizations to collect data from different sources such as internal systems and external sources, prepare it for analysis, develop and run queries against the data, and create reports, analytic dashboards and data visualizations to make the analytical results available to corporate decision makers as well as operational workers. Simply put, Business Intelligence is technology process that assists in the conversion of raw data into meaningful information. It helps you analyse the past and come up with the strategy to improve the future. When organizations carry out their day- to -day operation, raw data is generated and mostly stored in a database .This data needs to be analysed and meaningful information extracted from it. Based on this output, come up with future strategy that will grow the company. Making future decisions directly from raw data is impossible as a result there is need for the data to be converted into meaningful data. Management makes use of this information to take fact based decision that will result to a better future. The data used for Business Intelligence analysis comes from OLTP (Online transaction processing).These are daily transaction that takes place

Business analytics, in a nutshell, is usage of the type of data that can help one analyze a particular business situation and decide how to improve it. Instruments used for such an assessment include statistics, and both quantitative and qualitative analysis, as well as predictive and explanatory modeling.

All great organizations share one thing in common, the use of business intelligence. Business intelligence (BI) provides tools that revolutionize the way organizations manage business and decision-making. It allows them to transform mass amounts of raw data into reliable information necessary to make important business decisions. BI delivers relevant and reliable information to those who seek it with the goal of achieving better decisions faster. An employee is independently able to navigate through a company’s data and find what he or she needs without relying on others. This means an organization no longer needs to dig through compiled webs of linked spreadsheets, analyze the data manually and mash together reports. Instead, employees can use BI systems to request the specific information that is useful for them (Hitachi Solutions Canada, 2014). BI allows managers to reach the most accurate and contemporaneous information an organization’s database cannot retrieve. The software offers applications for both data analysis and presentation of results. Applications such as data mining and decision support systems allow one to contemplate how he or she wants to analyze the data. Data mining refers to the process of searching for valuable business information in a large database, data warehouse, or data mart. Decision support systems combine models and data in an attempt to analyze semi structured and some unstructured problems with

complicated. It is a major mutual concern for all business and IT sector companies to change the existing situation of "mass data, poor knowledge" and support better business decision-making and help enterprises increase profits and market share. Business intelligence technologies have emerged at such challenging times. Business today has compelled the enterprises to run different but coexisting information systems.

Business Intelligence is the gathering and analysis of large amounts of information so as to gain insights that propagate strategic and tactical business decisions. Business Intelligence is the conglomeration of the processes and technologies which change data into information. It encompasses a wide category of technologies, including data warehousing, multidimensional analysis or online analytical processing, data mining and visualization, as well as basic queries and multiple types of analytical tools for reporting. These technologies allow business stakeholders to collect, store, access, and do the analysis of data to improve the business decision-making capabilities (Khan, 2005).

This is a kind of predictive analytics which helps to give idea about most critical factors affecting the growth. Business intelligence is proved to be beneficial in decision making. We analyze all data like orders, inventory, accounts, and point of sale transactions and also of customers.

Business intelligence solutions are very significant to an enterprise performance and capabilities at all levels. They help the business to be more efficient, identify new business opportunities and spot areas of cost savings. Timely access to relevant information has been a hindrance to many business successes. The management is always necessitated to base its decision on the full range of information available but the business always has a huge amount of data (IBM, 2014). Due to the current escalating competition that is eroding the business loyal customers, they are required to install

In addition, the employment process requires effective communication in terms of the messages to post via advertisements. This is because potential candidates will be attracted by the content of the messages displayed through the adverts. In light of the current technological advancements such as the Internet and social networks, human resource managers would want to utilize such channels to reach many potential candidates across the globe (Lugonja, 2011: 2). This calls for flexibility and willingness to invest in technology where adequate efforts have not been made. However, a multidimensional approach would work better since not all people can access the Internet. In a nutshell, the process of selection and recruitment involves looking for and motivating prospective employees to apply for available job posts. Being a negative process, selection entails scrutinizing the qualifications of candidates that have applied in order to choose only the best applicants for various jobs (Sharma, Khurana, & Khurana, 2009: 17).

In today’s digital world it is crucial that companies evolve and adjust to the new technologies around them. Competition is stronger than ever, and does not only include the competition amongst consumers, but also the competition amongst job applicants. Traditional recruiting methods are a thing of the past thanks to new technology, and it is not only up to the job applicant but also the company to present themselves as desirable. How an organization conveys themselves to applicants is a part of the new e-recruiting process, and is the most important aspect in generating human capital. Thanks to the internet, the recruiting process has been expedited allowing companies to sift throw applicants at a record speed. E-recruiting and its process is a new innovation to the human resources department, but creates a list of advantages and disadvantages when using the process.

Traditional paper-based recruitment process of using job advertising is long process. First the applicants have to be identified, then the HRM team has to attract the applicants (select the recruitment source, and place the ads in the various sources), process the incoming applicants and finally communicate with the applicants (Holm, 2012). The communication process involves informing the applicants about the prescreen results and arrange interviews with the candidates that were narrowed down. When partaking in e-recruitment, the communication process is slightly different. The processing of incoming applications is performed at the same time as attracting applicants. The works in the favor of the organization as well as the candidate as the process is shorten and less costly. One if the highly divisible tasks which emerged with the spread of the internet and e-recruiting is that of maintaining career websites. The findings of the e-recruitment process consists of three major steps: attracting, sorting, and contracting candidates (Holm, 2012).