Business Intelligence is one of the hot topics at the moment,
promising customers ways to make better use of all that important
information stored on databases
The enterprise Business Intelligence landscape
It is now commonplace knowledge that modern corporations must use
information effectively to compete successfully. It is less widely
recognised how dramatically information use is changing on an
enterprise basis. Restructuring, deregulation and industry
consolidation have increased the number of critical decisions to be
made and reduced the time available to make them. Flatter
organisations produce higher percentages of decision-makers
throughout the enterprise. The amount of knowledge and data
available on which to base decisions has grown exponentially.The
data warehouse paradigm has emerged as a flexible framework for
enabling more people to make better decisions based on more data.
At its best, a data warehouse sources data from multiple internal
and external information systems, and makes it available via a
range of options, from push-model, update systems that regularly,
automatically and invisibly refresh reports on users' PCs, to fully
interactive pull-model technologies that enable users to
independently ask and answer their own questions, working at the
speed of thought.In the pre-data warehouse era, few individuals
outside the IT organisation had the tools and the ability to easily
access data to become active users of information for
decision-making. Client/server systems, decision support databases
and data warehouses have completely changed the level and
distribution of active usage of information in many
organisations.In this New World, there are still a small number of
IT and other professionals who are expert data users, and there
remains a group of people who do not need anything more than simple
reports. However, a broad "middle class" has emerged whose data use
is critical to business success. The question for these people is
not whether they will use a data warehouse, but how they will
interact with it.The IT challenge today is addressing support for
decision-making in this new context. If the broad majority of the
corporation's decision-makers are being supported by data warehouse
solutions, how effectively is the solution dealing with them? How
well are user differences recognised? How well are those different
needs met? Most importantly, how well are the differences balanced
with enterprise needs for IT standards, functional consistency and
return on investment?
The enterprise Business Intelligence
"supply chain" Examination of numerous data warehouse solutions
shows that information systems, and those interacting with them,
collectively form a "supply chain" complete with raw materials
(data), inventory and distribution systems (the data warehouse and
corporate network), manufacturers or producers (IT) and consumers
(end users).
Information producersIn the supply chain model,
information producers build and manage the data inventory and
distribution system. Within this group, information technologists
are the group who creates automated systems for delivering
information and who also manufactures enterprise for information
consumers in the form of applications, reports and analyses.
Information technologists need full-function tools for all these
activities so that they can continually predict and address the
changing needs of everyone else in the information supply
chain.Another group of information producers is power users. They
rely on information technologists to make structured data
available, but thereafter they become information producers for
their own purposes. These sophisticated users interact directly
with warehouse data to create reports and analyses for themselves
and selected information consumers. Power users have an insatiable
hunger for data and a concomitant ability to work with it. They
will master any tool or technology that might assist them in
finding the answers they need. Like information technologists,
power users require full-function tools that impel rather than
impede their work.
Information consumersThe largest group of
information consumers in most organisations is report viewers. Note
that this group generally includes senior managers. Report viewers
do not interact with warehouse data directly; instead they view
information in a variety of ways in their day-to-day activities.
Typically, they receive information through pre-built reports that
have been developed by information producers. The primary concern
of the report viewer is that their reports are timely, accurate and
readily available.The fastest-growing group of information
consumers today is active analysts. These professionals want to
answer "What about...?" questions that go beyond the bounds of
pre-defined analyses and standard reports. As such, their warehouse
access falls between that of a report viewer and a power user. They
want to interact with the information on which reports are based,
but don't necessarily need to access the data warehouse directly
(nor would IT prefer to grant such access in most cases). Active
analysts generally spend about 10-15 per cent of their time
analysing information on an ad hoc basis; they need access tools
that enable them to get in-depth answers whenever business
questions arise, regardless of time or place.
Beyond
client/server solutionsSome organisations have attempted to
serve all information producers and consumers using a
highest-common-denominator approach. Everyone gets a client/server
connection to the data warehouse, and users determine their own
level of interaction after that. Experience shows that this
approach entails high and continuing investments in technology and
maintenance relative to the impact on enterprise .It is therefore
with relief and excitement that many IT organisations have greeted
the serendipitous arrival of the World Wide Web: a cost-effective
way to provide anywhere, anytime access to information for the
broad middle class of data users. Client/server access to the data
warehouse can be limited to those who actually need it, and whose
impact on enterprise actually warrants it. The Web and a corporate
intranet can take care of the rest.While web technology lowers the
cost barrier to enterprise data access, it does not automatically
meet the varied functional needs of the broad set of users
described above.The Web is clearly a part of the solution. The
overall challenge remains, however: deploying effective access and
analysis products for enterprise by embracing both the Web and
intranets, as well as the client/server network, to ensure that all
users are served effectively. The critical success factors for such
access and analysis products are detailed in the following
paragraphs.
Enterprise integrationAccess and analysis
products for end users must meet three criteria for integration
into the enterprise. First, they must leverage existing hardware
and software systems, especially the range of desktop operating
systems found in the typical organisation. Access tools that do not
connect with all desktop operating systems are like telephones that
work only with certain telephone exchanges. Second, access and
analysis products must take full advantage of other products
important to, specifically including the data warehouse, its server
platform and metadata, and middleware. Third, they must present a
consistent interface, file structure and documentation across
versions for all types of decision-makers. When a report viewer
evolves into an active analyst, for example, she should find that
nothing has changed except the level of her access to information
and the tools available to her.
Solution
scalabilitySimilarly, access and analysis tools must meet three
criteria for overall solution scalability. First, they must scale
functionality along the entire information supply chain, so that
individuals can change their level of data access as their jobs
change or their level of sophistication evolves. Products that
restrict user evolution tend to restrict the growth of overall
enterprise. Second, price points should scale along the supply
chain, to keep costs in line with overall impact. Organisations
should be able to give everyone report viewer status at a low cost
per seat, while investing in other levels of user access at the
level their impact warrants. Third, access and analysis products
must be able to scale to support large databases and large numbers
of users. Growth in user sophistication leads to growth in the
warehouse solution and the number of people who wish to benefit
from it.
Low IT impactFinally, access and analysis products
must minimise their impact on the existing IT organisation and
infrastructure. First, they must provide short "time to market" for
IT and for users. Both installation and training should be simple
and quick. Second, IT resources required to support the access and
analysis products should grow more slowly than the number of users
and the number of applications.As the solution scales up, IT
resources required should be proportionately reduced. Third, data
warehouse access and analysis products must support a high degree
of manageability, auditing capability and security. These qualities
are absolute requirements for hardware and software investments
elsewhere in IT; they should not be passed over here.Recent studies
also indicate that enterprise solutions can produce dramatic
results. International Data Corp. (IDC) recently found that the
three-year return on investment for successful data warehouse
implementations averaged 401 per cent in the companies studied.
With the right levels of enterprise integration, solution
scalability and IT impact, enterprise solutions can do more than
reduce operating costs. By improving enterprise decision-making,
they can drive the profitability of the organisation as a
whole.
( Brio Technology, Inc. 1997Compiled by Paul
Phillips