What are Business Intelligence Systems

Below are some thoughts and findings on Business Intelligences Systems from one of our BI analysts David.

“With my recent change of work, I’ve had a number of my colleagues ask me what BI is all about. As I learned very quickly, what some might like you to think is that its really technical, complicated and you need to be IT savvy to do it. Frankly I spent the first years of my career as a graduate engineer doing exactly what these systems do. I would be regularly generating all manner of summary reports for my leaders, and generally they would be very tedious to do because the data they need comes from a mish-mash of data acquisition systems throughout an organization, in my case, SAP, Citect, PI, Babelfish, hand written notes, simple Access Shift Logs, other excel reports that others had made, delay accounting systems and the list goes on. Needless to say, I became very handy with excel trying to prevent these reports consuming my days, and often the reports would break, or someone else’s data would change. Heaven forbid – I was sick and not around to do it when it was needed.

So while some systems are better than others, essentially, these systems provide a powerful platform to connect to data sources, align it so it is comparable, and present it (like excel) in what ever way you need including – visual, tables, charts, diagrams, etc.

The real value is that once these systems are up and running, they don’t break like excel can, and are easily transferred between people to reproduce and distribute. In addition, they offer the ability to “drill down” by presenting data a high level, and contain a simple interface to look in to the detail (often without building new views or interfaces).

Some systems offer an internal database so that you can not only gather information, but potentially fill the gaps with data entry pages, essentially getting all the data you need in one place. From there, the functional uses are very broad – from Performance dash boarding & Visual Management Scorecards, to Financial Reports & Balance Sheets. A lot of Excel’s functionality can be reproduced, but it doesn’t replace Excel, it best use is for regular reporting I’m not personally convinced that it can replace excel for truly detailed adhoc analysis, but for most things, it can save a lot of time if you need to reproduce the same information regularly.

I’ve attached a “Webinar” of the platform I’m working with now as an example. FYI the first 10 mins are about the company Board, and from 10-25 the presenters give you an insight in to how the system can be used. This particular BI System is a took kit so the webinar offers an insight in to what can be done with today’s BI systems.”