The article under study is devoted to business intelligence and analytics, a field in academic and practical business studies. The term signifies techniques and practices used for analyzing business data and rapidly gaining popularity among the major business establishments. Due to several cases of increased and enhanced performance, the practices deserve the academician’s interest. Business intelligence and analytics can be characterized by its dependence on information intake and elicitation. By storing and analyzing data about various establishments, clients, and transactions, the structure of the market can be analyzed.
Considering the constant customers’ feedback, the market facilitates dialog between individuals and establishments. As a technique, business intelligence can be implemented in electronic commerce and redefinition of governments – although the last subject is understudied. As for science and technology, data analysis can boost scientific development and; in what concerns health and well-being, the technology is sufficient in patient empowerment and decision-making process (Chen, Chiang, & Storey, 2012).
As their recommendation, the authors state the utmost necessity to combine knowledge and skill. Also, they point out the need to cluster data for analysis improvement, educate analysts via online courses and also increase cyber-crime control. In the future, business intelligence and analytics is likely to concentrate on text and network analysis, as well as web content and operations (Chen et al., 2012).
The key point one might learn from the given article is that there is a wide array of business situations and, in each of them, business intelligence and analytics can be implemented in accord with the circumstances. Relying on retrieved facts, business analytics facilitates evidence-based decision-making. For that sake, data collection and storage is necessary, as well as the retrieval of customer feedback. Both the historical and new information are needed for data-backed decision making, and the access to the data should be permanent, with continuous updating to analyze it ad hoc. Advanced intelligence, in turn, is able to analyze predictively to further enhance decision-making (Chen et al., 2012).
The obvious benefit that the utilization of business intelligence and analytics can bring to an establishment is, as said, the improvement of decision-making. Indeed, the whole system was developed due to the unflagging need for more effective data retrieval, which it provides in abundance (Watson, 2010).
Keeping abreast of the customer’s inclinations, latest research findings, and social networking trends indicating the clever and faulty moves in performance, the business intelligence technology is an effective tool to find and process information necessary to base the decisions upon. Another undebatable advantage of business intelligence and analytics is that the technology pays for itself. It has been allocated that most major establishments prefer investing in business intelligence applications – and with good reason. In such establishments, a study by Nucleus Research finds, the investment produces a ROI of more than $10 for every $1 spent (McManus, 2014).
The tendency can be explained by the fact that the utilization of business intelligence makes the establishment more visible in the market – to be more exact, in the online dimension of it. The process is twofold: not only is the visibility enhanced, but the commentaries and feedback from the clients is also on the constant update, thus facilitating dialog, of which we spoke earlier. Apart from that, the expansion in the number of business intelligence developers and users has facilitated the development of competitive price and offer strategies. In turn, the customer flow has accelerated and increased since customers have realized they have a better choice, to date (Chaudhuri, Dayal, & Narasayya, 2011).
Another substantial benefit of business intelligence and analytics utilization is that the technology is hardly time-consuming. The fact that the gathered data is stored within the establishments’ database management systems plays a critical part in effective time management. It is stated that more than 90% of required information is available in establishments using business intelligence in real-time mode (Lock, 2014).
Thus, considering that the search has also been visualized and generally made easy, the information search in such organizations can be almost entirely sliced off from schedule. The final factor that might nevertheless be critical when considering one’s position towards using or not using business intelligence and analytics in running an organization is an ex contrario motivation factor. Indeed, as late as the year 2012 has proved that the overwhelming majority of organizations were either using the techniques or planning to use them (Informatica World, 2012).
It means that by now the bigger establishments are already enjoying the perks of big data, extended outsourcing, and improved decision-making, which makes them ever so competitive in the market. Due to all the aspects in which business intelligence proves beneficial for businesses, it has become an indispensable part of any competitive business, resulting from the “everyone is doing it” principle. Although this principle should be applied cautiously, it actually works in the case of business intelligence, resulting in extended customer response, effective time management, boosted decision-making, organizational competitiveness, and increased revenue. Which is why business intelligence technology is useful in terms of competition and is widely considered a must-have for any establishment that is aimed at succeeding.
It was not at random that we have spoken about visualized data as an asset of extreme value that business intelligence systems provide. The article informs the reader about the strategies and techniques that facilitate more illustrated data sets. Dashboards, for one, present an abundantly illustrative overview of the opportunities available. Also, it is a feature of great help to the management and administration who can rely on dashboard graphs to better predict and distribute sales resources. In contrast to a multitude of screens and reports, dashboards analyze the actions which greatly decreases the time – and human resources – spent on retrieving and analyzing valuable data.
For instance, a sales team wishing to get a review of net revenue or client loyalty metrics could make great use of a sales dashboard. Such achievements can be made since dashboards are basically about representation the most valuable data in one screen, and every piece of information is accumulated within reach (Chaudhuri et al. 2011).
References
Chaudhuri, S. D., Dayal, U., & Narasayya, V. (2011). An overview of business intelligence technology. Communications of the ACM, 54(8), 88-98. Web.
Chen, H., Chiang, R. H. L., & Storey, V. C. (2012). Business Intelligence and Analytics: From Big Data to Big Impact. MIS Quarterly, 36(4), 1165-1188. Web.
Informatica World. (2012). Big Data Equals Big Business Opportunity Say Global IT and Business Professionals. Web.
Lock, M. (2014). Embedded Analytics for the ISV: Supercharging Applications with BI. Web.
McManus, C. (2014). Business Analytics Returns $13.01 for Every Dollar Spent, Up from $10.66 Three Years Ago, Nucleus Research Finds. Web.
Watson, H. (2010). Business analytics insight: Hype or here to stay? Business Intelligence Journal, 16(1), 4-8. Web.