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Making the Right Business Decisions

By Graham Baylis

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 23Feb2008
Word count: 501
Viewed: 393 time(s)

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Making the right decision every time is probably the toughest challenge faced by any company director. Unless 'up to the minute' business information is available at their fingertips the average company director simply has to rely on guesswork. Okay, these may be 'educated' guesses but, believe it or not, there is a much better way to run a business.

Business Intelligence (BI) is all about getting things right first time. In financial terms this makes sound business sense. If there is nothing to fix then costs are lower and profits rise. So what is business intelligence and how can the average business person implement BI and make it work for them?

Let us start with a brief definition of Business Intelligence: In its broadest sense, business intelligence is a wide range of applications and technologies which gather, store, analyse and provide access to information that will help decision makers make better business choices. BI applications can include the activities of decision support systems, query and reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), statistical analysis, forecasting, and data mining.

Let us start with basic data gathering and analysis. These days most businesses have websites that enables users to complete an online enquiry form if they want more information about products or services. The data gathered by this process (often simply the enquirers name and email address) can be stored in a database and used for marketing purposes or market research.

Analysing stored data with specialist decision support software can suggest a wide range of business options. For example: geographical data and purchasing trends combined can prompt effective marketing decisions (it is logical to sell beach towels alongside sun tan lotion in Brighton rather than alongside fur lined boots in Helsinki).

Other information that a decision support application might gather and present could include comparative sales figures between one month and the next; projected revenue figures based on sales estimates or the consequences of different decisions based on past experience.

Decision support systems are designed to be easy to understand and may present information graphically as three dimensional models and may even include an element of artificial intelligence as part of their analytical processing capability. The most important characteristic is that the system should allow the user to selectively extract and view data from different points-of-view.

For example, a user can request that data be analysed to display a spreadsheet showing a company's ice cream sales on Brighton beach in the month of August, compare revenue figures with those for the same products in September, and then see a comparison of other product sales in Brighton in the same time period. Data mining or the discovery of relationships between data items is a powerful part of Business intelligence operations and can offer a huge range of decision making options. Investigation and research into BI potential will quickly show that to stay competitive executives always need to be making the right decisions. Anything that helps them do this can only be good for business.

Business Intelligence is all about making sure that a business owner knows what is going on in their business and thus allows them to make the right business decisions. This is just what Contemporary, a leader in the field of Business Intelligence and Business Objects offers. Training, hardware and software can all be provided. http://www.contemporary.co.uk

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