In fact many business as well as IT professionals dealing with such applications as CRM, LMS, ERP, SCM are likely to think that so called business intelligence or BI is another similar application. But in reality BI provides us with opportunities far outshining other narrowly focused applications. So I’ve made up my mind to enumerate the most typical distinctive features of business intelligence solutions. You can find them here below.
First of all I’d like to stress that business intelligence is user-defined and rather scalable. For example if you ask some guys about CRM as well as other business application terms then most probably that all their definitions will resemble each other. But if you ask them to give a definition of business intelligence then they will mention various reporting tools, data modeling, dashboards, data mining, performance management and so on.
The business intelligence market is quite saturated as you can see. Of course it’s known that business intelligence gives us so diverse opportunities that these days the market is full of various vendors who claim to sell business intelligence solutions. So it’s not surprising that when looking for different products, it’s very easy to get lost in myriads of features as well as functions. Of course each product can do some things, but I hope you realize that it shouldn’t do everything. Moreover in most cases the number of available options is enough to satisfy anybody’s business needs. So when choosing a business intelligence platform, it’s essential to get acquainted with all available functions. I hope you know your priorities.
I should say that business intelligence feature set is quite complex when compared with standard business software applications. Business intelligence has got a lot of features which may present a certain challenge to learn. For example you may have certain difficulties with adding summarizations, visual displaying, drilling down to reports and so on. For instance when dealing with data mining you may require learning about so called clustering, decision trees and regression. You should also get acquainted with all-powerful features requiring a higher learning curve when compared with out-of-the box solutions. From my point of view business intelligence benefits significantly outweigh the difficulties.
I should say that business intelligence platforms have exactly a horizontal approach to data which is supported by many vertical applications. In fact every organization dealing with data has got an evident potential to use business intelligence solutions.
By the way business intelligence solutions require IT involvement. It’s because business intelligence is quite complicated and certainly flexible in its structure. And it’s also platform-based. So it’s quite natural that it depends much on IT unlike other business applications.
It goes without saying that organizations combining efficient business solutions and IT resources achieve a greater overall success than those ones ignoring this. I hope you’ll take advantage of it too.
Currently we are living in the world of high technologies. These days the more your work flow is automated, the better, in particular when it refers to Reporting Services. Reporting is a very helpful thing. So if you would like to automate your reporting activities, you might consider trying SQL-RD. Having reporting automated will help eliminating manual process and saving time and money. Visit this SQL Server Reporting Services site to get more detailed information.
And remember that our world is the world of modern Internet technologies. It would be intelligent to use the online network to find anything at the best prices available on the market. Search engines, social networks, blogs and forums – all this will assist you to solve many issues.