Business Intelligence:Effective Decision Making

Bellevue College

Linda Rumans

IT Instructor, Business Division

Bellevue College

lrumans@bellevuecollege.edu

Current Status

Mountains of Data

What do I do???

How do I increase sales????

How do I make my product better???

Business Users

Mountains of Data

From Operational Systems ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)

– Sales/Order– Inventory

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Web Sites– Orders– Click-stream

…

Mountains of Data

Organizations have lots of data Data is not in a form that is useful to

decision-makers– Not easy to review– Not informative nor insightful

Today’s Information Flow

Business in 90’s invested in transactional systems:

– Supply Chain Management (SCM)– Customer Relationship Management (CRM)– Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)– Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP)– Finance (budget, forecasting and reporting)

Proliferation of Data

MRPSCMCRM Finance

OperationsSales FinanceProcure-ment

Silos of data by functional area

TransactionLayer

ReportingLayer

Data from Disparate Sources

Region: ARegion: BDiv 2 Div 1

SalesSales SalesSales

Silos of data within large organizations

TransactionLayer

ReportingLayer

Business Intelligence

Business is now investing in Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence is about making effective business decisions

What is BI?

The process by which an organization

manages large amounts of data, extracting pertinent information, and turning that information into knowledge upon which actions can be taken.

What is BI?

Business intelligence (BI) is a broad category of application programs and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions.

BI

Involves PEOPLE and Technology Involves using a rational approach to

management Involves a continuous cycle of measurement,

adjustment & re-measurement

The BI Cycle

BIstart

Reasons for BI

BI enables organizations to make well informed business decisions and gain competitive advantage.

BI enables organizations to use information to quickly and constantly respond to changes.

Benefits of BI

Improved performance based upon timely and accurate information

Elimination of guesswork Expedited decision making Early visibility of changes:

– Customer buying patterns– Supply chain activity– Financial arrangements

Benefits of BI

“Single Version of the truth” Accurate, timely data available to all levels of

the organization

To Note:

Although we call it Business Intelligence, the concepts and techniques are applicable to almost any organization including those in health care, biotech, education, government …

BI Activities

BI applications include the activities of:• decision support, • query and reporting, • online analytical processing (OLAP), • statistical analysis, • forecasting, and • data mining.

BI Users

There are many different users who can benefit from business intelligence– Executives – Business Decision Makers – Information Workers– Line Workers – Analysts

BI Solutions-How to make it happen

Two main components:– Data Consolidation and Storage– Data Retrieval, Analysis and Presentation

BI Curriculum

Multi-Dimensional Analysis Data Warehousing Data Mining Dimensional Modeling Data Visualization

The Problem

Mountains of DataBusiness People

GAP

How do I increase sales????

How do I make my product better???

How do I retain customers?

Bridging the Gap

Need data storage structures to facilitate fast analysis of huge volumes of data

Need software to provide access to the data, allow flexible manipulation, and provide meaningful presentation

Data Storage Structures

Multi-Dimensional DatabasesCubes

Multi-Dimensional Databases

Measures– Any quantitative expression – Some are designated as Key Performance Indicators (KPI)– Appropriate to the business process.

Dimensions– How we describe the measures:

Product/Customer/Region/Time– These are the “By’s– “What were our Customer Sales by Product Line by

Region by Quarter for the past two years?”.

Logical Structure

Multi-Dimensional Databases (Cubes)

ODS ODS ODS

Data Warehouse

Multi-Dimensional Database (Cube)

* ODS = Operational Data Store

Relational Database Programs

Business Intelligence Programs

Multi-Dimensional Databases

Multi-Dimensional Database (Cube)

Software Applications

Multi-Dimensional Database

(Cube)

Business Person

Business Person

Business Person

Reporting

Applications

Analytic Applications

Score Cards

Dashboards

Analytics

Reporting Applications– Limited user interaction– Fulfill a significant portion of an organization’s

information needs

Analytic Applications– Allow users to visualize and explore data

following their train of thought– Extensive interactivity

Analytic Application

Summary

Students learn to:– Create multi-dimensional databases– Create professional quality reports– Use analytics to provide in-depth data analysis

Data Warehousing

Designing a Data Warehouse

Data Warehouse Topics

Decision Support Systems– history

Requirements Gathering– Where data located, owners, definition, how often

updated

Data Analysis– Determine for table structures

Data Warehouse

ETL Processes & Deliverables– Cleaning & Conforming

Valid, missing Address, gender

– Schemas Dimension Tables Fact Tables

Data Consolidation & Storage

MRPCRMSCM Finance

TransactionLayer

Shared DataLayer

Data Warehouse

Customers Sales Procurement Suppliers Operations Finance

Shared Reporting

Operations and financial information is shared across the organization from same core data

Data Warehouses

ODS* ODS ODS

Data Warehouse

Multi-Dimensional Database (Cube)

*ODS = Operational Data Store

How is data consolidated?

This is difficult!!!!!– Data is often spread across multiple systems,

stored in different formats, and may even be localized for different countries

Transforming Data

Data must be transformed for consistency and meaning

– Transformations may be as simple as copying columns or may be incredibly complex

– Common transformations include: Hard-coded changes (‘T’ to 1) Looking up values in a table (mapping a customer number

across disparate systems) Inserting dummy records and mapping them to unknowns

(inserting an ‘Unknown’ customer)

Cleansing Data

Data must be cleansed to be meaningful– All companies have “bad” data in their systems– Data may be missing– Data may be inconsistent– Data may be wrong

Data Warehouses

ETL (extract, transform and load) processes are needed to create data warehouses– This is an arduous and technical process that can

account for a large percentage of a BI project cost!!!!

Data Mining

Data Mining

The process of identifying patterns in data

Goes beyond simple querying of the database

Goes beyond multi-dimensional database queries as well

Data Mining

Data Mining works for problems like:– Develop a general profile for credit card customers

…– Differentiate individuals who are poor credit risks

…– Determine what characteristics differentiate male

& female investors.

Data Mining vs. Data Query

Use data query if you already almost know what you are looking for.

Use data mining to find regularities in data that are not obvious.

Data Mining Applications

Fraud detection Targeted Marketing Risk Management Business Analysis

Origins of Data Mining

Mathematics– Statistics– Numerical Analysis

Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Computer Science

– Data Storage and Manipulation

How does Data Mining work?

Uses induction-based learning:

The process of forming general concept definitions by observing specific examples of concepts to be learned.

How does Data Mining work?

What-Cha-Ma-Call-Its NOT What-Cha-Ma-Call-Its

How does Data Mining work?

Which of these are What-Cha-Ma-Call-Its?

Data Mining Process

List of Customers:

-some bicycle buyers

-some not

Data Mining

SoftwareModel

List of Prospective Buyers

Model

List of Likely Buyers

Overview of Mining Strategies

Data MiningStrategies

SupervisedLearning

Market Basket

Analysis

UnsupervisedClustering

Note: This representation is over-simplified and data mining strategies are continually being invented.

More on our Curriculum

Skills

Written communication Problem Solving

– Analytical – Troubleshooting

Software– Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio– SQL Server BI Development Studio– SQL Server Reporting Services– Pro Clarity

Delivery Methods

Online: Distance Education, reaches wider market

Telecourse: tremendous effort to create, but once created easy to deliver– Televised, DVDs, online for homework, exams

Hybrid: Meet once a week, the rest online On campus: evenings only

Delivery Methods

Use of Camtasia for– Software demonstrations– PowerPoint lectures

Pod casting

Certificates

Business Intelligence Analyst (5 classes)– Multi-dimensional analysis, data warehousing, data

mining, statistics, general business– 2 quarters full-time/ 3 quarters part-time

Business Intelligence Developer (4 additional classes)– Dimensional modeling, data visualization, multi-

dimensional II, data warehousing II (more programming with SQL Server)

Web site: www.bcc.ctc.edu/bi

Certificates

Relational Database Analyst (6 classes)– SA & D, programming, reporting, spreadsheets, db

theory– 2 quarters full-time/ 3 quarters part-time

Relational Database Developer (3 additional classes)– Programming, SQL, group processes

Web site: www.bcc.ctc.edu/bi

Jobs

Business Analyst Data Analyst Functional Analyst Marketing Analyst

Jobs

Report Developer Data Modeler ETL Developer Data Architect Data Warehouse Designer Data Warehouse Developer Data Warehouse Administrator Database Administrator

Jobs

Business Intelligence Consultant Business Intelligence Developer Business Intelligence Analyst Business Intelligence Project Team Member

Jobs

One of the fastest growing segments of IT

Less likely to be outsourced

May exist in business units rather than IT

Knowledge/understanding of the organization is key