User organisations searching for business intelligence
(BI) developments at this week's CeBit exhibition in Hanover will
find new tools that can carry out complex operations on changing
business data that are more user-friendly for non-technical
employees.
Analysts highlighted the importance of a new breed of tools that
can perform reporting and analysis based on dynamic business data
and predictive rather than merely static analysis.
The main BI suppliers have moved from selling applications as
point releases to creating business intelligence platforms - a move
that enables different employees to carry out different types of
analysis on the same pool of business data, which is termed
"roles-based analysis".
More providers are also supplying BI dashboards - tools to
indicate the health of particular parts of the business using a
traffic-light system, and offer executives a clear view of complex
business metrics.
Alys Woodward, senior analyst at Ovum, advised users to
investigate integrated platforms from the likes of Cognos,
MicroStrategy, Business Objects and Hyperion, but said they should
"look beyond the bells and whistles".
"You can spend millions on BI and still get absolutely nothing
out of it," she added. "But on the other hand, BI at its best is
excellent, and can drive competitive edge."
Integrated platforms make it easier for organisations to bring
together different sources of business data, and give different
employees the information they require, whether through predictive
analysis or analysing data warehouse information, said
Woodward.
"This is the main reason for buying all your BI tools from a
single vendor. Roles-based tools and pricing means users can decide
what level of detail employees need - not everyone needs
full-throttle Olap [online analytical programming]."
Andrew Kellett, senior research analyst at Butler Group, said
users could benefit greatly from the new tools.
"The latest BIofferings from the industry's leading players
bring event-driven reporting and analysis to the forefront. With
this approach, users will not be required to manually submit
reports and queries as their execution will be driven by thresholds
and conditional logic."
Kellett added, "Going forward, BI will be used to produce
current, future and predictive information flows and these will be
delivered via services that can actively be used to facilitate
change and support business decision-making processes."
l At CeBit 2006, Arcplan will demonstrate a new version of
DynaSight, its BI platform based on a service-oriented
architecture. It features the CFO Cockpit, a dashboard program that
gives chief financial officers predefined reports.