The term Business Intelligence (English business investigation, business realizations, Abk. BI, translated of some authors falsely with "business intelligence ") beginning to center of the 1990er years popular and designates systems and processes for the systematic analysis (intelligence) of the own enterprise and its commercial surrounding field and/or certain partial aspects. A goal is the production of realizations, which make better operational, tactical or strategic decisions possible in regard to the company targets. This takes place with the help of certain analytic concepts and EDP systems, the data over the own enterprise, which evaluates competitors or market tendency regarding the desired realization gain. With the won realizations enterprises can make its business procedures, customer and suppliers' relations more profitable, lower costs, minimize risks and increase the creation of value. The term is added to the field of activity of the economical informatics.

Demarcation

The term is used frequently synonymously with Competitive Intelligence, whereby Business Intelligence is somewhat more generally calm and also the evaluation of internal data covers. Further synonyms are Technical Intelligence, Strategic Intelligence and Market Intelligence. The English term "intelligence" has here not the meaning "intelligence ", but "realizations from collecting and preparing relevant information "(see the designation of the American secret service CIA (cent ral Intelligence Agency). "Business "means here "business "in the broader sense than whole of all enterprise-internal and - external economic subjects and procedures, which are relevant for the own enterprise.

Phases

The systematic enterprise analysis (Business Intelligence) can be divided in three phases: In the first phase (DATA delivery) basic data are specified and raised (quantitative and qualitative kind, structures unstructured or). This data acquisition is made either by a "operational" system (OLTP) or in a DATA Warehouse. In the second phase (discovery OF relation, patterns, and of principles) the data are brought with one another in connection, so that samples and become visible and with any before set up hypotheses to be compared to be able, e.g. in the form of multi-dimensional analyses or DATA Mining. In the third phase (knowledge sharing) the realizations in the enterprise are then communicated, i.e. integrated into the knowledge management. The spreading of the won realizations is to serve to supply decision bases for measures and actions.

History

The term "business intelligence" was coined/shaped 1989 by Howard Dresner, an analyst of the refining he company. This coined/shaped the resuming term Business performance management in the subsequent years also.

Term understanding

In the closer sense BI designates only the methodology of the data acquisition, in the broader sense understands one by Business Intelligence the whole about management bases like e.g. Knowledge management, Customer Relationship management or Balanced Scorecard, which cover the permanent data administration and Anspassung with a process orientated term understanding also to a changing surrounding field (strategic alignment).

Tools

Business Intelligence avails itself of the analytic information systems. The volume of data of an analysis is fed from DATA a Warehouse and/or excerpts from it (DATA Marts). Analysis methods are among other things OLAP, DATA Mining, text Mining, Web Mining or Case Based Reasoning, whereby most of these procedures are based on classical statistics.

Offerer

The market for Business Intelligence software in Germany is to time (2005) in a growth phase: A study of the Meta Group resulted in that on an annual rise of the size of the market from approx. 16 per cent to is to be counted. Until 2007 are prognosticated according to Analystenaussage a gross income by 1.76 billion euro.

The prominent software providers for Business Intelligence solutions are:

• Applix
• arcplan
• Actuate
• Business Objects
• Cognos
• Hyperion
• Information of Builders
• Microsoft
• MicroStrategy
• Oracle
• Panorama software
• QlikTech
• SAP AG
• SAS of institutes

Apart from these commercial systems there are also open SOURCE solutions:

• Pentaho: Open SOURCE Business Intelligence Suite - Integratives package of different open SOURCE BI Tools
• WEKA: free open SOURCE software for DATA Mining
• YALE (Yet Another Learning Environment): free open SOURCE software for Business Intelligence, Knowledge Discovery and DATA Mining
• PALO: in Germany open SOURCE OLAP data base developed

Literature

• Egger, N.: SAP Business Intelligence - current to SAP NetWeaver 2004s, ISBN 3-89842-790-0, May 2006, detail to the book
• Chamoni, P./Gluchowski, P. (Hrsg.): Analytic information systems: DATA Warehouse, on-line Analytical processing, DATA Mining, Berlin 1998
• Clausen, N.: Business Intelligence - lecture to the FH Heilbronn, 2005, http://clausenn.de/cms/de/external/2005fhhnbi.pdf
• Grothe, M./Gentsch, P.: Business Intelligence - from information competition advantages win, Munich, Addison-Wesley, 2000
• Hildebrand, Knut (Hrsg.): Business Intelligence, HMD 222, dpunkt.verlag, Heidelberg 2001, ISBN 3-89864-128-7.
• Kemper, H. - G./Mehanna, W./Unger, C.: Business Intelligence - bases and practical applications: an introduction to the IT-based management support, Wiesbaden 2004 ISBN 3-52805-802-1
• Kimball, R.: The DATA Warehouse Toolkit, 2002, 2. Edition, John Wiley & Sons
• Mertens, P.: Business Intelligence - an overview, in: Information management & Consulting 17 (2002) extra charge

Related links

• Competence center about Business Intelligence
• BARC Business Application Research center, range of topics Business Intelligence

Articles in category "Business Intelligence"

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