Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2010

Microsoft recently released a cool poster that gives an overview of the tools for Business Intelligence (BI) in SharePoint 2010. You can download the poster here

This poster gives an overview of Microsoft BI, SharePoint Server 2010 Insights and Architecture of SharePoint Server Service Applications for Business Intelligence. Here’s a sample screenshot of this poster.

Read more: http://www.phphosts.org/2010/11/business-intelligence-in-sharepoint-2010/#ixzz16dt0Wvgz

Source:http://www.phphosts.org/2010/11/business-intelligence-in-sharepoint-2010/ 

10 Guiding Principles for Better Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence (BI) refers to the skills, processes, technologies, applications and practices used to support decision making, and is crucial component of strategy for businesses to operate successfully.   MIKE2.0 has a valuable wiki article on this topic that shares guiding principles to help information management professionals develop a strong BI program.   

Below are the basics:

1) Keep the strategy at the vision level

Establish the Blueprint and never start from scratch – use best practice frameworks. Keep things at a strategic level while still following a diligent approach to requirements.

2) Use a requirements-driven approach

Even when using off-the-shelf information models, requirements must drive the solution. Plan to go through multiple iterations of requirements gathering.

3) Develop a BusinessTime model for synchronisation

Be prepared to handle growing requirements for the synchronisation of data in real-time into the analytical environment. Focus heavily on the “time dimension” as part of your architecture.

4) Use a well-architected approach

An analytical environment is not a dumping group for data. Data that is not integrated or conformed does not provide the value users want.

5) Investigate & fix DQ problems early

Data quality issues make it difficult to integrate data into the analytical environment and can make user reports worthless. Start with data profiling to identify high risk areas in the early stages of the project.

6) Use standards to reduce complexity

The Business Intelligence environment is inherently complex – to maximise benefits to the user the system must be easy to use. One of the most important things that can be done is to develop a set of open and common standards related to data, integration and infrastructure.

7) Build a metadata-driven solution

A comprehensive approach metadata management is the key to reducing complexity and promoting reusability across infrastructure. A metadata-driven approach makes it easier for users to understand the meaning of data and to understand how lineage of data across the environment.

8 ) Store data at a detailed and integrated level

Aggregation and integration is far easier when you store data at a detailed level. It you don’t store detailed analytical data, some users will typically not get all the information they want.

9) Design for continuous, increment-based delivery

Analytical environments should built through a “journey”.

10) Use a detailed, method-based approach

Methods such as MIKE2.0 can help provide a task-oriented approach with detailed supporting artifacts. 

Source:http://smartdatacollective.com/mike20/28197/10-guiding-principles-better-business-intelligence 

If you don't know everything you'd like to know about what makes your business tick -- what works, what doesn't and how much it all costs -- you need business intelligence or BI. Business intelligence solutions pull data from multiple operational systems (finance, sales, supply chain management, etc.), integrate it, analyze it and present it in easily digestible form as graphs, charts and dials on screen-based "dashboards."

"Business intelligence is about empowering people with the data that will help them make better decisions," said Dyke Hensen, senior vice president of product strategy at Pivotlink, a vendor of software-as-a-service (SaaS) BI solutions.

BI answers questions such as: Which are my best customers? Which are my most profitable products or services? Which are my most efficient locations? How much will it cost to open a new territory? Where am I wasting money?

Rapid ROI

The classic, often-repeated business case for BI revolves around reducing inventory. If business intelligence lets you see up-to-the-minute sales and/or consumption trends and real-time inventory levels, you can delay re-ordering until you actually need items, saving the considerable costs associated with inventory management.

According to Anthony Deighton, senior vice president of products at QlikTech Inc., a maker of QlikView BI software, the benefits of BI software are enormous.

It's about being able to make smarter business decisions and gain insights into what drives the business: where the costs are, where the costs are leaking, where the opportunities are -- real tactical issues that make a bottom-line difference in how you run your business," Deighton said.

A study commissioned last year by QlikTech from IT analyst firm IDC concluded that the average payback period for a QlikView implementation was an impressively short 198 days. The average return on investment (ROI) reported across all QlikView implementations was 186 percent, and the ROI benefits included an average 16 percent increase in revenue and 20 percent reduction in operating costs.

Source