Business Intelligence Articles

How Are Companies Using Business Intelligence to Improve Business Performance?

Business Intelligence, the combination of data collection and process improvement, is steadily changing the way businesses, both small and large, operate on a daily basis.  A business intelligence solution  provides cutting-edge information that supports excellence in decision making and process improvement.  Development of Business Intelligence industry as a whole has allowed organizations to use technology to improve performance in many ways.

With the proper data mining, a business intelligence solution can assist specific areas such as Human Resources, Marketing, Finance, Sales and Manufacturing operations by collecting data that impacts performance and profitability.  Once your key players have the proper information, decisions that support business growth are more easily made.  While on the face of it, it would appear that Business Intelligence would segment businesses into their component parts, that is simply not true.  In fact, a Business Intelligence solution actually helps businesses perform in a more cohesive manner.  Customers, employees, finance, and the supply chain can see more easily exactly how decisions effect the organization as a whole.  Once this is understood, your business can operate at a higher level, making decisions that support the growth of the business as a whole.

Another way that Businesses Intelligence allows businesses to perform more efficiently is by gathering  real-time or near real-time data.  These types of reports can allow employees to effectively respond to challenges and opportunities.  If your employees don’t have the ability to see exactly what is causing changes in the sales cycle or interruptions in logistics or manufacturing, it will hurt your bottom line.  Businesses Intelligence can make your business more nimble and allow you to reduce your costs, slowing down  or increasing production and manufacturing in response to sales and market conditions, while protecting your bottom line.

Finally, Business Intelligence has created better performance for customers, including Customer Service Departments and Sales.  Your customers can use a data portal to review their recent transactions.  This reduces the amount of time customer service representatives need to spend culling through data.  Especially helpful in the medical and insurance industries, Business Intelligence can decrease the size and overhead costs of customer service departments.  Sales departments as well can be effected positively by Business Intelligence.  Giving customers the opportunity to purchase products and supplies in an automated environment reduces man hours and increases the predictive ability of logistics and supply chain employees.  Real-time and near real-time sales data helps companies to get the product they need, in the place they need it, in a more timely manner.

A Business Intelligence solution gives your organization a real way to stay competitive in today’s constantly changing economic and business environment.  Giving businesses the real-time data and information they need to quickly adjust their direction allows businesses a better opportunity to not only stay viable, but to perform beautifully in today’s economy.  Areas such as integrating data across the company, increased customer service, real-time data collection, and data portals are just a few ways that a Business Intelligence solution increases performance for organizations today.  Business Intelligence software gives organizations a way to be more effective and to adjust to the competition on a daily basis, allowing your employees to work more effectively on the things that really make a difference to your bottom line.

How to Leverage a Business Intelligence Solution for Corporate Performance Management

In the past, Business Intelligence has been focused on data mining and management.  It has been helpful in creating reports and effectively changing processes, but bringing the entire Business Intelligence process into the performance arena has been a challenge.  Now, with improvements in data visualization and predictive analysis,  Business Intelligence technology has developed to the level where informed reporting can actually assist your company in performance management.  Business Intelligence is making great inroads at combining human capital and effectiveness with Corporate Performance Management (CPM).

When considering how to leverage Business Intelligence for CPM, it is important for you to keep in mind that actionable goals are the way that organizations move forward.  Proposing hypothetical levels of performance without considering whether your business is capable of such work is not helpful.  Excellent areas to consider include developing organizational goals dealing with operations, costs and increasing revenue.  Business Intelligence technology can integrate disparate data sources from multiple departments to identify where CPM can have biggest impact.  And, by evaluating past performance and using predictive analytics to help define goals, Business Intelligence can show you strengths and weaknesses in a clear format.

Another way to leverage CPM is by focusing on accountability.  Once goals are developed, accountability helps to increase creativity, innovation and value.  Engaging the entire company workforce, not just senior-level teams, will help to strengthen your company.  In order to do this, using a combination of Business Intelligence, scorecarding, and data consolidation will give you a good idea as to which departments are meeting their goals are which are not.

In addition, Business Intelligence and CPM can be used to identify and gather specific data that is used to make decisions and set goals.  These goals can be monitored to attach performance to the amount of effort inputted by your teams and the results.  Once overall organizational goals have been determined, the process can move downward through the organization.  By making overall goals transparent, departmental goals and objectives can be developed and discussion can begin as to how specific work aligns with performance metrics and overall profitability.  As time progresses, evaluation of the CPM can begin and adjustments can be made.  With strategic planning, barriers to performance improvement can be removed and your company can begin to set new targets and goals.  The reporting present with CPM allows almost automatic decision making as data is distilled down within context to make recommendations for best practices.  In this way, everyone in your organization gets a senior-level view of what’s going on.  And everyone has the ability to participate in performance improvement.

Once the relationship between Business Intelligence and CPM has been developed in your organization, better informed business decisions will result.  And, as time goes on, in increased market share and sales will be part of your business.  Companies like Cognizant use Behavioral Business Intelligence (BBI) to give companies reports that show what decisions have led to best practices and how to replicate the cycle.  Making CPM work in your business involves making sure that information is communicated in multiple directions so that every level of your organization has the ability to implement necessary changes.

Overall, Business Intelligence and Corporate Performance Management is used to examine performance effectiveness, provide oversight and help companies to set priorities.  Focusing on accountability, communication and actionable goals sets the foundation to leverage Business Intelligence for Corporate Performance Management.

How is Agile Business Intelligence Effective?

Though many believe that the Agile movement in business and in Business Intelligence, specifically, is about being “quicker and better” than the competition, that is not what makes Agile Business Intelligence effective.  Many people don’t realize that Agile Business Intelligence is not an efficiency process at all.  In fact, Agile Business Intelligence is based on a set of core relational values and is, in effect, an entire a style of completing work.

Agile Business Intelligence is effective for many reasons.  First, Agile Business Intelligence is respectful of the organization.  With the value placed on individuals and building quality relationships, companies and vendors have a chance to develop projects that merge the client and the Business Intelligence vendor.  This high level of communication leads to better clarity about what Business Intelligence is, its limits, and how it can be of the best service to the organization.  Customer collaboration is also a key component to the Agile Business Intelligence movement and as such, creates a vibrant environment where people work together to integrate effective IT and business solutions.

Other attitudes that help to make Agile Business Intelligence effective is in the acknowledgment that companies are working in an ever changing environment.  Business Intelligence vendors who subscribe to the Agile view know that requirements change, not only over the long-term, but over the short-term as well.  With the Agile movement, these changes are welcomed as a normal part of doing business, which takes pressure off of the organization.  When these changes occur, Agile Business Intelligence prioritizes responding to the change quickly as a way to constantly deliver value to the client.  In order for this to be a reality, Agile Business Intelligence vendors expect to have regular collaboration with their own software and technology experts and the organization’s experts. 

Another simple way that Agile Business Intelligence is extremely effective is in its desire to provide a working system.  Business Intelligence that does not work, whether because of data management and integration issues, reporting challenges or limits to hardware or predictive capacity is a hindrance to a company, not a help.  Agile Business Intelligence seeks to minimize those problems and to provide a reliable technology solution for organizations, which again, builds value in the relationship and develops trust over the long term. 

Finally, Agile Business Intelligence values experts on every level.  Whether on the IT side or the business side, having input from a variety of sources is what makes Agile Business Intelligence so effective.  Self-organized or organizationally developed teams provide insight that helps Business Intelligence to be relevant and useful for the client.  Cross-departmental teams that can inform developers as to broad company needs are particularly helpful due to the fact that each member brings departmental representation to the table. 

Clearly, Agile Business Intelligence has a lot to offer in terms of an organic and holistic approach to implementing Business Intelligence into an organization.  If you are looking for a vendor who takes into account your needs, values relationship, desires collaboration and works hard to earn your trust, you may want to look for an Agile Business Intelligence vendor for your business.

The Future of Business Intelligence

Over the last few years, the Business Intelligence industry has emerged as a booming business.  New technology, the development of SaaS, web-based reporting, and the ability of Business Intelligence to inform literally every aspect of operations has changed the way we do business.  Clearly, Business Intelligence is here to stay.  But, what should we expect for the future? 

Data visualization is going to be one of the key changes in the next five years.  By 2015, it is predicted that up to 100 million people will use data visualization in doing their jobs.  These people are not just on executive committees, either.  In the future, workers will have their own dashboards to help them to make adjustments in their workflow, see outcomes and progress in projects and processes, and see overall company statistics on a daily basis.

With more and more people using data visualization, there will also be more frequent reporting in the future.  In the past, many companies have focused on quarterly, monthly or weekly reporting.  The future will bring daily reporting that resembles the one or two clicks we use on the Internet to get information.  Company statistics will have the ability to be displayed much like stock quotes, with running current and predictive analytics available to those who need them.  Because these reports will become so key, the future of the data visualization industry is certain.  In fact, the development of data visualization industry may grow to a whopping $1 billion per year in size.

Predictive analysis is another area for growth in the future.  With organizations using more and more sophisticated tools to evaluate their business, knowing what the possibilities are for the future are even more critical.  Based on past and current reporting, Business Intelligence technology will develop ways to give organizations a view of how their current actions effect their future opportunities.  This predictive analysis will allow organizations to better plan and set achievable, meaningful goals, having a positive effect on the bottom line.

Another area of future development is in data certification.  Look for reputable companies to offer “data certification” as a way for third party data to be evaluated based on quality before purchase or even well before it is used by a company as an analytic.  Industry-wide standards, such as a published criteria and certification tests, may be coming sometime in the future as a way to guarantee quality so that customers will know ahead of time what level of expertise a company can offer.

In the future, data warehousing will continue to be a hot topic.  For companies, dealing with all of the data that they collect is a continuing problem.  The Business Intelligence industry will develop ways to deal with terabytes of data in a sensible way, getting rid of inefficiencies and inaccuracies that currently hamper accurate reporting and predictive analysis.  As the data becomes more and more accurate, it will have an increased value to every company.  Because of this critical value, there will also be a focus on protection of data assets, particularly for SaaS, where data is stored off-site.  Protection of these assets will become a key component offering for Business Intelligence assets.

Finally, in the future, Business Intelligence will begin to inform more and more marketing decisions, saving companies a predicted $200 billion in wasted advertising and direct mail.  With accurate data and increased predictive abilities, marketing will take on a highly targeted nature, with results being accessible in a much shorter time frame.

The future for Business Intelligence technology includes continued development of data solutions, instant reporting and the ability for virtually everyone to have access to data visualization.  Security and certification standards will help to define the leaders in the industry going forward.

Why Choose SaaS Business Intelligence Over Traditional Business Intelligence

Software as a Service, commonly called SaaS, is becoming more and more popular as a viable Business Intelligence option.  There are many reasons to choose this type of shared infrastructure solution.  Let’s take a look at why a company might choose SaaS Business Intelligence over traditional Business Intelligence software.

SaaS Business Intelligence does not require a huge, front-end monetary investment.  SaaS business intelligence is set up to work on a shared infrastructure and the cost of using this type of Business Intelligence and data warehousing is billed on a per-use basis, rather than on a user-based, licensing fee system.  This fact alone can save companies literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees alone.  Because of this, SaaS is a wonderful solution for smaller to mid-sized companies who do not have complicated IT departments that can handle the implementation of a complicated Business Intelligence system, nor the large, up-front investment. Vendors like 1010data, Kognitio and SAP, specialize in SaaS Business Intelligence.  Because these companies host their own data warehouses, organizations also do not have to shoulder the cost of a hardware investment.

The overall value proposition of SaaS over traditional Business Intelligence is analytics and data warehousing can be combined into a seamless integration with little hassle for companies.  Not only do companies such as 1010data host the analytics on their infrastructure, but they also maintain, manage, and collect the data from their clients.  Clients have the assurance that someone else is doing the hard work of taking care of their Business Intelligence system.  If a problem should arise with a malfunction in hardware or software, the hosting company is responsible for that.  In traditional Business Intelligence, the burden for the cost of software or hardware repair would be on the organization itself.

Another area why you should consider SaaS over traditional Business Intelligence is because of the ease of use.  With SaaS Business Intelligence, the client simply sends all the data to be analyzed to the vendor.  The vendor will then merge any disparate data sources, maintain the new database, and completely integrate the data.  When the client needs a report, it can be accessed through the Web. Customers get web-based ad hoc query abilities and formalized reporting capability as they wish.  In fact, with many SaaS programs, end-users can manipulate their own data, getting the reports with the parameters they need quickly.

SaaS has an additional benefit over traditional Business Intelligence technology in that it takes less time to set up a SaaS system than a traditional Business Intelligence system.  There is no on-site involvement, and no complicated hardware or software that has to be managed by a team of on-site consultants, and no physical space required.  In this respect, SaaS systems are ideal for virtual companies who need access to data on-the-go.

Because there is no hardware investment, SaaS platforms provide flexibility for an organization.  If the relationship between company and vendor doesn’t work out, the company can walk away and use another vendor if needed, or begin the traditional Business Intelligence process.  In this respect, SaaS reduces risk to companies because they have the ability to walk away with little loss.

There are many reasons that SaaS technology is a ideal choice for companies instead of traditional Business Intelligence.  Decreased cost, less risk and web-based access to reporting are all reasons that SaaS has an important part to play in the Business Intelligence industry.

Critical Success Factors of Business Intelligence Implementation

Most business professionals agree that implementing Business Intelligence is vital in today’s tumultuous environment to maintain competitiveness. But, trying to figure out the critical success factors in implementing Business Intelligence technology can be a real challenge. With so many options, where is the best place to start to be successful in implementing Business Intelligence Software?

First, it is important to focus on what you really need. One of the first considerations is deciding how your business would benefit from the data derived from Business Intelligence. While a Business Intelligence solution can be applied to virtually your entire organization, it can also be limited to just one department. If finances need to be better tracked, that might be the place to start. Or, if you run manufacturing processes, monitoring just one portion of that process might be an option. Conversely, implementation of an entire organization-wide Business Intelligence process, will help to integrate all your departments.

Second, focus on return on investment . Every business must concentrated on how big of an ROI they are getting and purchasing Business Intelligence software is no exception. Business Intelligence technology varies from quite simple to complicated ETL functionality. While it might be attractive to purchase a more complicated product, you may not need all of the features and each of those features have a cost. Not only is the cost in the purchase of the technology, but also in the hours required to learn to use these tools effectively for your team. Before you start implementing Business Intelligence technology, investigate all of the options. While there are many features available in Business Intelligence, not all of them will fit your business adequately. You may need more or fewer options regarding real-time data, accessibility, and data portals. Having a consultant on stand by to help you interpret the data can be helpful, but there is also a cost associated. Interview several different companies and do a thorough search. While a more popular brand of Business Intelligence may seem like the best fit, a smaller company with a more simple, cost-effective process or even open-source software might actually be better for you and your employees.

Third, know why you want it. While many businesses are implementing Business Intelligence, it is important to realize that it is critical to implement Business Intelligence because it is necessary for your business and can be thoroughly utilized, not just because it is the newest trend in organizational management. Just saying you have implemented Business Intelligence for its own sake does not mean that you have taken full advantage of the cost of doing so.

A fourth critical factor is to get buy-in from company management. If the push to implement Business Intelligence technology hasn’t come from the top of the organization, it is critical that they do come into agreement with the need for it. And, not just the CFO, but from the CEO on down. Knowing that the entire organization is rallied behind the implementation of Business Intelligence is key as otherwise, it can become a struggle between IT and operations. In addition, consider is the mindset of your employees. Getting agreement from the key decision makers is a vital concern before any Business Intelligence process is begun. Business Intelligence sometimes requires structural or
hierarchical changes in an organization. Without proper communication and agreement prior to beginning the process, workforce disillusionment can occur, which will slow down or stop the data gathering process entirely. Getting agreement ahead of time, and being honest about the amount of changes necessary, will prepare your employees for the implementation phase of Business Intelligence.

Lastly, remember to provide training and prepare for change. A critical success factor is to evaluate your workforce carefully. When Business Intelligence is implemented it may become clear that some team members have missing skills. Having a mechanism to provide additional training to these workers is a key action of successful companies. Whether in-house training or outsourced training, making sure that every member of a team is on a level playing field is critical to not only enhancing skills, but to developing employee satisfaction and loyalty.

Ownership in the Business Intelligence process is a key component is a key area in developing a culture of Business Intelligence. This can only come when the implementation of Business Intelligence is seen as a new weapon in an organization’s arsenal, not a way to monitor employees. As previously discussed, workers are uncomfortable with change. Communication from the outset about why Business Intelligence isneeded, what it is expected to do, and how it will change the organization, is paramount prior to the first piece of data being gathered. Proud ownership of the Business Intelligence process almost guarantees success. Benefits to team members must be stressed and repeated from the outset for Business Intelligence to be accepted into your organization’s culture.

There are many considerations when thinking about the critical success factors in implementing Business Intelligence. Decisions such as how far reaching your data gathering needs to be, how many features you need, getting the appropriate buy-in and cooperation from your team, and shopping different vendors are just a few of the things that have to be evaluated before a purchase.

Tips For Choosing The Right Business Intelligence Software

With as many choices as there are on the market for Business Intelligence software, trying to navigate the waters as to what to choose can be harrowing. Open-source, proprietary software, ETL– the choices are endless. And, with the speed of software development, new solutions are constantly coming on the market. As you think about which software to purchase, there are many options to consider. Here are a few tips for choosing the right Business Intelligence software.

Unhindered, Real-Time Data

On-demand, real-time or near real-time data is a critical feature to include in any Business Intelligence implementation. Knowing a problem, challenge or opportunity has arisen immediately in your business is key to your ability to respond to it. Look for alert features that can email you when a critical juncture has occurred. And, on-demand features can allow you to pull cached reports that you use repeatedly. Having these reports at your fingertips gives you a snapshot of your business processes as they happen and can assist you in establishing short and long-term goals, as well as evaluate areas for process improvement.

Scalability

Don’t forget to consider scalability in your Business Intelligence technology. While there are many “Cadillac” brands of Business Intelligence software, consider whether or not you need all the features that are offered. These features, while providing flexibility, can also represent more cost to smaller and mid-sized companies. Features such as ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) can be expensive and can require maintenance contracts and a consultant to operate them. On the other hand, open-source Business Intelligence software can be virtually free and still offer pertinent data management and analysis for businesses in their daily operations.

Data Visualization

If you are just getting started, consider Business Intelligence technology that provides data visualization. While the creation of metadata (data about your data) sounds good, it also
requires statistically savvy consultants to interpret it, costing you and your organization more money. If your Business Intelligence software can create histograms, charts and graphs, it may be easier for your workforce to evaluate the data on their own. That is one of the important benefits of data visualization.

Cost

Finally, it is absolutely critical to pay attention to overall cost. Business Intelligence technology should help you protect your bottom line and your employee resources, while giving you an excellent return on investment. Some Business Intelligence software requires user-based licensing and maintenance fees, while others are simply billed based on a flat fee. To start off, you may want to consider a flat fee service that is flexible enough to grow with your organization and avoid licensing fees that can run into the six figures. For smaller to mid-sized companies with concerns about overall cost, look for user-friendly Business Intelligence software that you and your staff can implement with a limited amount of help. Open-source software solutions are additionally a cost-effective place to start when considering a software purchase.

Certainly, choosing Business Intelligence software can be a real challenge. But, by carefully considering factors such as unhindered, real-time data, scalability, data visualization and cost, you will be well on your way to choosing the best fit for your organization’s needs.

Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing

Over the last several years, Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing have become the focus in organizational technology solutions.  As new software has become available, the focus on data warehousing has increased.  The most frequent concern when talking about Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing is how an organization can take tons of stored data, frequently spread over several different formats, and integrate it into a usable intelligence system, giving users the information they need in a timely manner.  This is one of the ultimate challenges for the Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing industry.

The goal of integrating Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing is figuring out how to present the information, once gathered and analyzed, in an easy to use format that is friendly to users and decision makers.  Many companies face the problem of how to combine data and Business Intelligence.  With increased opportunities to collect data, whether based on Internet hits, potential customer information collected on a website, or process related manufacturing data, figuring out how to use all the information to support effective decision making is key. 

Combining Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing can be a real challenge due to the fact that data mining processes already in place can present data in formats such as log files, flat data files and even call and email data files.  In addition, each department in an organization has disparate needs for data.  What data the Marketing and Sales Team requests may not be what the Finance, Operations and Logistics need, nor does it guarantee that they are even using the same databases for their data collection. It is easy to see why working on integrating Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence has been a major trend as of late. 

Once the information is put into a user-friendly format, internal team members, external suppliers and customers have the benefit of the collected data and reports.  ETL, or Extract, Tranform and Load solutions often create some of the best options for companies with many types of  data to pull together.  Once the data has been coordinated, it is possible to use a combination of open source and proprietary software together to create a unique solution that brings the data into a workable format with reports that support excellent decision making. 

When thinking about Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing, cost always comes into play.  Considering open-source software is an important step in maintaining the viability of a project with today’s economy and concerns over cost and liquidity.  With open-source software, companies have the ability to have a great deal of assistance with their data issues, without the overwhelming cost of user licensed products, which can run in the six figures. 

The goal when considering how to marry Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing is to create an affordable solution for the organization, while still providing the best overall product.  In addition, concerns about how many types of data a company collects and how they can be integrated into a Business Intelligence platform is a challenge for many companies.  Ultimately, flexibility, cost control and providing excellent analytic and predictive market intelligence are the goals when combining Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing.

2010 Top 10 Business Intelligence Trends

The Business Intelligence Industry grows faster and faster every year with new software and analytics debuting regularly.  Trying to keep up with the changes in the environment can be staggering.  In this article, we have identified ten top Business Intelligence software trends worth watching.

The first trend to look for is pre-packaged solutions that are focused on strategic answers.  “Strategy-Driven” software will emerge as a way to cover all business processes– whether performance-based, predictive of future trends, to monitor goals or to optimize transactions.  Real-time reports will be part of the program, not a costly add-on.  Having data integrated is a trend that more and more businesses are taking advantage of so that they can establish organizational-wide coordination.

The second trend is shortened reaction times for reporting and predictive analytics.  Waiting for mountains data to be analyzed has always been a challenge in Business Intelligence solutions.  New technology such as Complex Event Processing uses algorithms to make decisions quickly.

Third is a focus on getting correct and accurate data though Data Governance. The reality is that the software is only as good as the data.  It is critical in the case of Business Intelligence solutions that the data is correct before organizational changes are implemented.

Fourth, data warehousing and operational systems will be combined more closely  Instead of simply generating reports and simple queries, the new systems focus on informing traditional decision making and in some cases, also automatic decision making.

Fifth, Excel will continue to be prominently used by home users and companies alike.  With the new version, there are new analytic and charting options that provide additional data visualization and options.  In addition, a new engine allows for lightening fast analysis on millions of lines of data.

Sixth, new priorities are emerging with data warehousing and Business Intelligence.  New technologies have to be able to not only store all the relevant data, but they need to be able to instantaneously process it, decipher it’s importance and integrate the information back into applications.  A focus on integration of data will be with us for the near future.

Seventh, data virtualization will allow real-time, event and batch data to be combined from disparate sources into one.  Called Master Data Management, or MDM, completely different areas of business– whether suppliers, processes, finance or customers– can be combined and integrated.

Eighth, semantic technologies are allowing users to deal with unstructured data in a more effective way.   Content monitoring, filtering, and advanced classification allow data and content to be normalized, which in turn, allows greater usage in all areas of the organization.

Ninth, look for the normally isolated compliance issues, performance management and risk analysis to come together.  While these processes are normally completely separate, with the increase in government compliance, and the need to ensure financial performance to maintain viability, compliance, performance and risk will be cemented into one unit in future applications.

Tenth, with the economy still feeling a bit timid to many business owners, open-source Business Intelligence software is catching on.  Extremely cost-effective, these open source solutions can not only be used singly, but in cooperation with other closed-source applications.  Though a good cost-effective solution, there may still be a limited market.

Overall, the Business Intelligence solutions trends are focused on data integration, predictive analysis, and cost-effective solutions for organizations of every size.  Look for more simple, yet effective solutions for the future.

Top Business Intelligence Software Vendors You Should Know About

Over the last few years, with companies focused on Business Intelligence and developing software with excellent analytics, vendors have been competing for market share.  In 2007, when Hyperion, Business Objects and Cognos merged, the reorganization of Business Intelligence Software Vendors began.  Since then, some commonly known names have stayed at the top, while some newcomers have made a real splash.  Vendors you should know about focus on excellent analytics and data management, combined with working toward giving as much versatility as possible to the client with the application of their product.

As you might expect, IBM is still at the top of the heap in Business Intelligence.  Recently, IBM has launched it’s own Business Analytics and Optimization Group, which houses over four thousand consultants working with companies to implement Business Intelligence.  In addition, known for being on the cutting-edge of analytics, IBM has purchased SPSS, Inc., a specialist in data mining and predictive analysis. 

Microsoft is another name that should be familiar to you, even if you are new to the Business Intelligence arena.  As usual Microsoft is doing a great job getting their product out to customers.  They are focusing on adding Business Intelligence to their products with software such as SharePoint, Office and SQL Server.  As usual, Microsoft is approaching customers with something that is always appreciated– low-cost bundling.

Another vendor to watch is SAP.  SAP has a huge customer base and they are loyal because customers love the way the SAP products so easily work together.  One of their newest projects entails building semantic layers into the current product line and developing in-memory database solutions.  And, customer service is now becoming one of their top priorities. 

Oracle is another company that is continuing to develop innovative Business Intelligence solutions.  Recently, Oracle has developed the Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition suite.  This suite of has taken two products– Siebel and Hyperion– and brought them together into one package.  Also known for their complete database solutions, Oracle is a leader in the Business Intelligence industry. 

MicroStrategy offers a unique approach to Business Intelligence by taking data management and reporting needs mobile.  With the ability to not only report, monitor and analyze information that an organization has gathered, MicroStrategy has made them micro-sized.  As a unique offering, their Business Intelligence software can deliver results via iPhone, iPad, email and other mobile devices.  Completely scalable, MicroStrategy offers a user-friendly Business Intelligence solution especially for those companies where the workforce is not centrally located.

Finally, SAS is another vendor to watch.  In business since 1976, SAS is a privately held company that does work around the globe in integrating customer information, corporate performance, predictive analysis, and monitoring financials.  With their focus on customer satisfaction, SAS is a company worth watching.

Clearly, there are many Business Intelligence vendors in the market today.  IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, MicroStrategy and SAS are just a few that are working on cutting-edge solutions to help businesses deal with millions of pieces of data.  Their efforts help businesses make better decisions every day, protecting the viability of companies and jobs.