FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:

Over the decades there were tremendous amount of challenges for every business. Customers have more knowledge, they have more options, and they have higher expectations. Customers are more informed with the humungous development in technology. Having more options in front of them, expectations has surpassed in retail industry. Loyalty is a customer having faith that your organization’s product or services offered is the best for them. It is the process of tapping the buying pattern of customers in a store based on their preferences. Customer loyalty is significant because it is economical to retain the old customers rather than acquiring new customers. So, organizations employ loyalty programs which reward customers for their repeat business.

In 2011 the giant retailer Target got in trouble for sending coupons for baby clothes and nursery furniture to a teenage girl. The father drove to the local Target and complained to the manager. Two weeks later, the father called Target to apologize. After a long talk with his teenage daughter, he found out she was indeed pregnant. Not only was Target able to predict the teenager was pregnant … but they also forecasted what month the girl was likely to deliver her baby.

Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world and handles more than one million customer transactions every hour and generates more than 2.5 petabytes of data storage (Venkatraman & Brooks, 2012). To put this into perspective, this data is equivalent to 167 times the number of books in America’s Library of Congress (Venkatraman & Brooks, 2012). So how can Wal-Mart use this massive amount of data and what useful information can this data provide? This paper will provide a brief overview of the importance of Business Intelligence (BI) and how the largest retailer in world, Walmart, is using it.

SYSCO was a highly decentralized business composed of over 100 operating companies. Senior executives believed in treating these companies as largely independent businesses whose leaders should be entrepreneurial and growth oriented. Consequently, operating company managers had substantial autonomy; they could market to customers and invest in their businesses as they saw fit.2

The objective of this Business Intelligence (BI) plan is to encourage outsourcing and offshoring information security (IS) pursuits. The plan provides guidelines for successful implementation of IS systems intended to diminish security risks. The anticipated audiences of this BI plan are chief information officers (CIO) and chief information security officers (CISO). Senior management has an obligation to streamline information technology (IT) budgets, defend spending, and augment service delivery and efficiency (NASCIO, 2008). BI plans are usually comprised of (a) software, hardware, network, and associated infrastructure; (b) data analyses applications; and, (c) a portal or dashboard with which users interact (Hennen,

Company’s current position and ability to compete on analytics: I had worked for a healthcare delivery organization whose mission is to enhance the quality of life through improved health, prepare future health care professionals and discover new medical knowledge through research. It is the only Academic Medical center in the region and enjoyed a monopoly for quite some time. With the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the payment model changed from Fee for Service to Bundled payments. The organization was challenged to lower the cost of providing healthcare services without compromising quality of care or research. It had to invest heavily on implementing Electronic Medical Records and systems for reporting to regulatory agencies and insurance companies. The table below highlights the differences between Analytics and Business Intelligence. Note that the organization is in the early phase of implementing BI solutions.

Decision Support Systems (DDS’s) can greatly enhance business processes in a number of ways by enabling consistent monitoring of Business Intelligence (BI) data from a number of sources. Foremost, these sources can include former Executive Decision Support (EDS) systems, Management Information Systems (MIS), including, transactional data captured via Transactional Processing Systems (TPS), and Online Transactional Processing (OLTP) systems. This academic paper will discuss Business Intelligence, (IT)-Business/ Alignment with the Business Strategy. Also, there will be an initiative to describe both objectives and levels of strategic planning, including, how each can be supported by (DDS). Initially, we begin by discussion of Business

Associations have begun considering and are putting an offer of their assets in the execution of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Business Intelligence (BI) into the business. In today 's worldwide focused, considering the connection of complex BI and ERP, these frameworks have ended up key vital instruments, which straightforwardly affect and are considered as execution markers of the accomplishment of any task with which a ton of consideration is to be given for the combination of Business Intelligence and Enterprise Resource Planning With a wide mixture of differing qualities and discontinuity for the mix of ERP and BI into the business, I endeavor to audit and assess a portion of the practices which influence the business

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.).

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.).

When we design a database for a relational system, the main objective in the development of a logical data model is to create an accurate representation of the data its relationship and constraints. The data should be split in different tables, which can then be joined together based on their relations with each other and the data found in each one of them. These tables should therefore be designed well to save on space and ensure that cases on data inconsistency are eliminated. Another aspect, which will be saved on, is space that is occupied by repetitive data.

The primary test business insights appearances are assembling the vital information about the business. The key for get-together information is computerizing the methodology.

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 mix of the processes and technologies which change data into information. It includes 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.

This data can be used as a tool to not only focus on descriptive analysis and reporting but also on predictive analysis to take more steps on delivering better performance and stronger bottom-line. BI refers to the skills, process, technologies and application used to support decision making and by using this the organization can take appropriate steps towards enhancing the quality of product, quality of service thus improving their profits and expanding their business.

This paper illustrates the concept of Business Intelligence as a stored knowledge of the company that can be developed and organized for better and effective decision making process. It synthesizes the concept of business intelligence and introduces the BI information system software that can harness all the needed information and data for decision makers. This process is placed in the context of mid size companies in Saudi Arabia for them to gain competitive advantage.