BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE.

MR. Philip Obara

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UNIT LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this unit you will be able to:

1. Discuss business processes and the mechanisms used to
support business decision-making.
2. Compare the tools and technologies associated with
business intelligence functionality.
3. Demonstrate the use of business intelligence tools and
technologies.
4. Discuss the impact of business intelligence tools and
technologies for effective decision-making purposes and
the legal/regulatory context in which they are used.

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Introduction to business intelligence

Definition
-Business intelligence (BI) is a set of technologies that
are used to solve specific business problems. BI tools
are typically designed to deliver a mix of operational
embedded analytics, analytics platform capabilities, and
rich data visualization functionality. 
-They include reporting tools, statistical analysis tools,
database management systems, and data mining
applications. BI is usually implemented as a standalone
technology in-house or by an outside consulting firm or
vendor.

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A Short video explanation on
business intelligence

h t t p s : / / w w w. y o u t u b e . c o m / w a t c h ?
v = h D J d k c d G 1 i A

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Brief history of business intelligence

In 1968, only individuals with extremely specialized skills

could translate data into usable information. At this time,
data from multiple sources was normally stored in silos,
and research was typically presented in a fragmented,
disjointed report that was open to interpretation. Edgar
Codd recognized this as a problem, and published a paper
in 1970, altering the way people thought about databases.
His  proposal of developing a “relational database model”
gained tremendous popularity, and was adapted worldwide.

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D E C I S I O N S U P P O RT S Y S T E M S ( D S S )

(DSS) was the first database management system to be

developed. Many historians suggest the modern
version of Business Intelligence evolved from the DSS
database. The number of BI vendors grew in the 1980s,
as business people discovered the value of Business
Intelligence. An assortment of tools were developed
during this time, with the goal of accessing and
organizing data in simpler ways. OLAP, Executive
Information Systems, and data warehouses were some
of the tools developed to work with DSS.

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OLAP
• Online analytical processing (OLAP) is a system that allows users to analyze
data, from a variety of sources, while offering multiple paradigms, or
perspectives. Databases configured for OLAP use a multidimensional data
model, supporting complex analysis and ad hoc queries. The standard
applications of OLAP include:
• business reporting for sales

• marketing

• management reporting

• business process management (BPM)

• budgeting and forecasting

• financial reporting and similar areas

• new applications, such as agriculture

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• OLAP “was” quite popular, because of the variety of ways
it offered to assemble and organize information. As a SQL
based program, it lost popularity when NoSQL became
popular. (At present, some companies, such as Kyvos
Insights, Platfora, and AtScale, have layered OLAP onto a
NoSQL base.) OLAP supports three basic operations:
• consolidation

• drill-down

• slicing and dicing

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• Consolidation involves combining data that can be
stored and processed in multiple ways. For example, all
branch auto sales can be totaled by the auto sales
manager, as a way to anticipate sales trends. On the
other hand, the drill-down technique supports navigating
through, and researching, the details. People can view
the auto sales by color, style, or gas consumption.
Slicing and dicing lets people take out (slice) specific
data on the OLAP cube, and view (dice) those slices
from different perspectives (sometimes called
dimensions, as in “multidimensional”).

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Executive Information System
(EIS)
In the late 1970s, CEOs began using the internet for
researching business information. This led to the
development of software, called 
Executive Information Systems (EIS), to support upper
management in making decisions. An EIS is designed to
provide the appropriate and up-to-date information
needed to “streamline” the decision-making process.
The system emphasizes graphics displays and easy-to-
use interfaces in presenting the information.

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 EIS CONTINUATION
• The goal of an EIS was to turn executives into
“hands-on” users, who handle their own email,
research, appointments, and reading of reports,
rather than receiving this information through
middle men/women. EIS gradually lost popularity
due to its limitations in actually being helpful.

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Data warehouses
• Data Warehouses started becoming popular in the
1980s, as businesses began using in-house Data
Analysis solutions on a regular basis. (This was
often done after 5 PM and on weekends, due to the
limitations of computer systems at the time.) Prior
to Data Warehousing, a significant amount of
redundancy was needed to provide different people
in the decision-making process with useful
information.

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Data warehouse cont.…
• Data warehousing significantly cut the amount of time needed to access
data. Data traditionally stored in a number of locations (often, in the
form of departmental silos), could now be stored in a single location.

• The use of Data Warehouses also helped in developing the use of Big
Data. Suddenly, a massive amount of data, in a variety of forms (email,
internet, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) could be accessed from a single data
store, saving time and money, and accessing Business Information
previously unavailable. The potential of Data Warehouses for data-
driven insights was huge. These insights increased profits, detected
fraud, and minimized losses.

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 Business intelligence goes high tech

• Business Intelligence, as a technological concept, began shortly after the

1988 international conference, The Multiway Data Analysis Consortium,
held in Rome. The conclusions reached at this conference jump-started
efforts for simplifying BI analysis, while making it more user-friendly. A
large number of BI businesses started up in response to the conference’s
conclusions, with each new business offering new BI tools. During this
period, there were two basic functions of BI: producing data and reports,
and organizing and visualizing it in a presentable way.

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 BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE VS ANALYTICS
Business Intelligence
The term Business Intelligence has evolved to represent
a range of technologies supporting decision-makers
within businesses.
B u s i n e s s A n a l y ti c s
Analytics, on the other hand, has come to represent a broad
range of tools for processing data, and acts as an umbrella
phrase, covering data warehousing, enterprise information
management, business intelligence, enterprise performance
management, and governance.
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