What is The Right Mix Of Business Intelligence Tool

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Business intelligence is a relatively new field in the business world. However, this does not mean that it should be earlier to it will do all types of businesses that provide care for this aspect. Business intelligence is something that can actually foster a healthy working environment for all kinds of industries. After all, the only thing constant in this world is change, and this also applies in the business world as well. Thus, it helps to put business intelligence in corporate settings, and has a business intelligence tool that fits on your side of the fence.

In short, business actually use business intelligence to gain much-needed advantage over their competitors. Thus, there is no business without a significant competitor to actually pay for extra work. What business intelligence is that it provides businesses a perfect way to understand the needs of their customers, how their customers make decisions regarding the purchase of products and services, how customers view the products and services in the market, and the usual technology, cultural, and economic trends in the market. More than that, business intelligence is not focused only on customers only. In contrast, focuses on all aspects surrounding the market, to obtain a complete picture of the industry as a whole.

Seeing how the balanced scorecard and key performance indicators or KPI has become a major managerial tool in establishing the business today, it's not really surprising to find this in conjunction with business intelligence tools as well. With the help of KPIs and balanced scorecard, the data actually becomes more and more accessible and also processed faster and faster, it will be tied to how companies have implemented KPI today. Believe it or not, in the past, it will take weeks, even months, for companies to have access to current data that businesses can access only a day. This is an efficient way the business world has become with the help of these tools.

Business intelligence gathering clearly needed all kinds of information and then analyze this information to provide relevant data to the public in an organization, most of the time, this will become a member of upper management. These efforts require the use of some equipment and tools, the data will include data warehousing, data mining, and modeling data. These tools are data that make it easier for companies to collect the necessary data and then analyze and interpret it correctly. This tool will be used for the purpose of the organization and will also be used in conjunction with OLAP or Online Analytical Process. Another term for Analytics and OLAP is the basis for this procedure is actually the Cube Dimension Analysis.

With everything covered, clear business need the right mix of business intelligence tools to improve better in the market and increase their reach to customers, which they want to have on their side of the fence. With the right tools to help companies gather data that they need, every business must be able to gain any significant advantage over competitors.

Reference:
[1] Sam Miller,http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sam_Miller

Business Intelligence Software Review Your company should know

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In September 2009, IBM published the results of their survey with the 2600 CIO from 78 different countries and 19 different industries. 83% of CIOs interviewed personally selected Business Intelligence and Analytics as their main priority for 2009 and 2010.

In the past 6 months, we tested several business intelligence (BI) solutions such as Cognos, iQ4bis, Business Objects, Qlikview, Micro Strategy and BDA. They vary much in function, price, necessary resources (external and internal), the target group, integration with data sources and more.

In addition to its own research, we interviewed more than 50 companies to get their input about the experience with BI solutions, they TCO (total cost of ownership) and their future plans with Analytics.

We found that large companies is less price-sensitive and still invest in an external consulting and add additional users for their BI systems. But most small and medium-sized companies, (most of them with $ 50 million to 500 million U.S. dollars annual turnover, the so-called SMEs or Small and Mid-Size Business) want to reduce their costs for application analysis and take ownership more by using the resources internally to build or expand the data warehouse and analysis applications.

Therefore, we concentrated our efforts in searching and examining applications of BI are cheap, feature rich and easy to implement with the resources in-house. We found one clear winner, a relatively new business intelligence software, called BDA which stands for Business-Data-Analysis. BDA offers a data warehouse based on Microsoft technology, SQL-Server (but works with all types of data sources like Oracle, IBM DB2, SQL-Server, Access and many more), reporting and analysis front-end and many pre-packaged business solutions such as Sales Analysis for JD Edwards, Sage, BPCS, SAP and more. The two features we most like is that the BDA offers an unlimited number of user front-end for reporting and analysis system and the fact that IT departments can take full ownership of BDA to build or extend applications.

Reference:
[1] Herbert Schoenek, http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Herbert_Schoenek

On Demand Business Intelligence Applications:7 Things You Need to Know about

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The next generation of business intelligence applications demand is already here, providing instant visibility to the fraction of the cost of traditional BI offerings. Look at the following seven facts you need to know about business intelligence on-demand.

1.Provides right metrics out-of-the-box - the next generation of BI applications are pre-integrated with the ERP, such as SAP, to provide a full set of metrics best practices in key subject areas such as the performance of suppliers, procurement and inventory performance.
2.More affordable than current solutions - application True on-demand business intelligence available at an affordable monthly subscription with zero up-front investment. Say "goodbye" to ongoing professional services, consulting fees, and upgrades.
You 3.Simplifies BI processes - On demand BI BI infrastructure by replacing the entire URL. No software or hardware, there is no change or IT professional services. An effective solution more reliable and cost.
4.Promotes user adoption - The complexity inherent in traditional business intelligence on-premise installation of the adoption of low-end users because user expectations are not met. With the demand for business intelligence, there is essentially zero risk involved - if your needs are not met, simply cancel your service.
5.On-demand BI applications are secure - Data centers, like Rackspace, a SAS70 certified and provides state-physical-the-art, data and network security. Their business is focused on IT security while you focus on business IT.
6.Built for business users - On demand business intelligence applications developed with business users in mind. They combine domain expertise with deep technical knowledge to provide best practice metrics and analysis packed easy to use tool for easy reporting and navigation data.
7.Enables collaboration and sharing of information, users can share a fully customizable business metrics with co-workers to get answers and opinions on business performance.

BI applications is to fulfill the unrealized potential of business intelligence by reducing complexity, improving usability, and eliminate dependence continues to IT. Why start a long and expensive BI projects that have a high chance of failure, when you can get the information you need at a fraction of the cost, today?

Reference:
[1]Flex John, http://www.articlesbase.com/software-articles/7-things-you-need-to-know-about-on-demand-business-intelligence-applications-3503693.html

Tips for Setting Up Business Intelligence System

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The main concept behind the business is to collect important information that can be turned into useful knowledge. Therefore, every growing business needs to realize the importance of business intelligence. Business intelligence information gathering process associated with a significant fine, sorting this information, analyze this information, evaluation and checking this information, and generate reports from this information is processed for use by companies or business owners in making their decision.

A business intelligence system will, therefore, help the company or business to manage all information produced is evaluated for them and make them available and useful whenever it is needed. It is the responsibility of a business intelligence system to create reports based on data collected to help steer the company toward the goals set.

Growth in Business Intelligence System

Business intelligence systems began with a humble beginning. Until a few years ago, a simple business intelligence systems with reporting tools, analytic resources, data mining and storage facilities. This arrangement proved difficult for the average worker to understand and use the system for maximum effectiveness.

Now, business intelligence system has undergone modifications that make it much easier to use. This modification together with the new design makes the system more effective in providing meaningful and accurate results for the company.

A Business Intelligence System Every company is different

Because different companies have different needs and objectives, business intelligence systems will vary from one company to another. A business intelligence system that can be tailored to address specific needs of a particular company. Tools and resources needed to be designed so that the unique features of performance indicators and measurement company. In this way the business intelligence system will help determine whether the company's strategy and plans that are compatible with their goals. This is an important part of the assessment process because at this stage that the company's status and position are analyzed to determine how he will fare in the coming years.

Putting Up Business Intelligence System

There are various steps involved in placing a business intelligence system every significant step towards the entire process. The first step in building a business intelligence system is to answer important questions about corporate entity. It should be first and foremost that the company had knowledge of the purpose and what it plans to achieve. This is a prerequisite for the next step is to determine how the business intelligence system will help them achieve their goals. The type of data that needs to be collected and collected and the way in which the data will be collected and stored is the next part of the process. Having data that is not where it ends. Companies also must realize the statistical parameters of the data for the system to be able to design metrics that will be used to measure, analyze, evaluate, and produce reports from the output of this step. Monitoring business intelligence system is also a regular and constant responsibility for the company; then, hire staff at home to do this is necessary. Building a business intelligence system is of course expensive, so companies should ensure that it can be bought from every stage of its development.

Of course, there are many more factors to consider in this process, and more elements need to attend to the business intelligence system that will be realized. A careful analysis of each step of the process and be knowledgeable about the system is a basic requirement in the process of setting up such a business intelligence system.

Get your article marketing efforts today with web marketing web company.

Reference:
[1] http://www.articlesbase.com/small-business-articles/setting-up-your-companys-business-intelligence-system-321498.html

Why Business Intelligence Service?

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If you're going to start a new business set up then surely you will find a handsome return. The balance between revenues and expenditures or profits are real business intelligence. To achieve this goal, you must apply intelligent business applications. By implementing this application you can to minimize operating costs and increase your revenue.

If you plan to buy the software to optimize your business solution, designed specifically for that purpose then there is one thing to see that this software can not be practical as the circumstances would not be the same for different types of businesses. You can not deal with such type of software itself. So it's advisable to hire a specialist when she could make decisions and analyze the situation favorable to you. He can also take the help of software like that he is able to handle it perfectly.

Good business intelligence services to invite confidence, got it, honor it and finally the gift. Consultants will do everything to promote you. First he made a survey in accordance with your business, it will create a strategy and follow it. He also would change his decision, if necessary. All previous results will be there in his notes to learn them. These records will help him in the future. He can keep you updated about the product or service. Being a software specialist he will give optimal results. So beneficial for you to take a good service or a savvy business consultant business consulting firm that smart.

Some people start making them up from home. At first they thought it would be beneficial and economical for them. But after sometimes they feel that they are either ignored or they get a loss. It makes them angry. So, if you are also going through the same situation, then the answer to this question is to take a well-known business intelligence consulting services. business intelligence solution will definitely give height to your destination. After some time, the company or your product will become a brand.

Reference:
[1] Arun Kumar, http://www.articlesbase.com/customer-service-articles/the-importance-of-business-intelligence-services-2307343.html

Know Your Business Intelligence Investment Strategies

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When you invest your money in a particular business, you will want to be successful. You do not want something you've worked hard for to go down the drain in a matter of time. In order for you to make sure that you will rise above the challenges when setting up a business, you have to come up with effective business intelligence strategy. But before you develop a strategy, you need to know more about business intelligence. In general, business intelligence is to learn how to mind your client work. In this way, you will be able to determine the right thing to do in order to serve them well. On the other hand, also about the size up your competitors so you will get to appear in the middle of a big competition. What's more, business intelligence is about knowing your organization's weaknesses and strengthen weaknesses. When you can learn more about business intelligence, you will know how to come up with a business intelligence strategy that will surely make your investment a success.

Back Up Your Business Intelligence Strategy with Effective Tools

Your organization should plan a business intelligence strategy carefully if you want to rise above the competition. You must enter the mind that when you work together as a group, you will be able to come up with the best tactics to create your business wins. Your team must continue to goal-oriented and united. If you want to make sure that each group member has the right knowledge, to choose wisely from your organization. A team that has more expertise from business intelligence will help you develop business intelligence strategies efficiently. In addition to great teamwork, you must also back up your strategy with the best tools. Examples of these tools will be the application of intelligence or management software. Although your business plan sounds just perfect, he will never be one unless you pair it with the right tools.

Importance of Business Intelligence Strategy Formulation

If you want more profits directly into your business, you must understand the importance of business intelligence strategy. Once you realize the benefits that can give you, you will be able to come up with intelligence solutions that match your business goals. You must make it a point to make a tactic to make your business more successful intelligence efforts. However, it should not end only with the awareness and understanding. Careful planning and development of ideas are also needed. preparation of your business must be careful before you think about the implementation of any business intelligence strategy.
What Makes Your Business Strategy Intelligence Success?
Before you develop a business intelligence strategy, you need to know certain factors that make it more effective. There are main factors that determine the efficient intelligence tactics. These include:
• continuous adjustment of your business goals with your intelligence strategy.
• practical integration of business intelligence applications into the main workflow and business processes.
• Constant consultation with members of your organization's right, like the authority of the business.
• Improve your business practices with technology.
• Use the definition of efficient processes for your business intelligence strategy.

Business Intelligence Strategy Change in Your Business Growth

Your business is not within a certain level. Over time, your investment will grow and grow. This goes especially when your business intelligence strategy effectively and successfully. With the growth of your business, your strategy must also change. This is due to the fact that you need to improve your tactics to meet the growing demands of your clients. Your competitors are also thinking of ways to get the victory. This is why you need to increase your intelligence business strategy at all times to gain an edge against them.

Reference:
[1] Hall Andrew, http://www.articlesbase.com/small-business-articles/know-the-best-business-intelligence-strategy-for-your-investment-321497.html

microsoft sql server reporting services

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SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is a server-based report generation software system from Microsoft. It can be used to prepare and deliver a variety of interactive and printed reports. It is administered via a web interface. Reporting services features a web services interface to support the development of custom reporting applications.

SSRS competes with Crystal Reports and other business intelligence tools, and is included in Express, Workgroup, Standard, and Enterprise editions of Microsoft SQL Server as an install option. Reporting Services was first released in 2004 as an add-on to SQL Server 2000. The second version was released as a part of SQL Server 2005 in November 2005. The latest version was released as part of SQL Server 2008 in August 2008. Reports are defined in Report Definition Language (RDL), an XML markup language. Reports can be designed using recent versions of Microsoft Visual Studio, with the included Business Intelligence Projects plug-in installed or with the included Report Builder, a simplified tool that does not offer all the functionality of Visual Studio. Reports defined by RDL can be generated in a variety of formats[1] including Excel, PDF, CSV, XML, TIFF (and other image formats[2]), and HTML Web Archive. SQL Server 2008 SSRS can also prepare reports in Microsoft Word (DOC) format.

Article Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Server_Reporting_Services

Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, BPM Implementation Guide

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Business Performance Management (BPM) establishes a framework to improve business performance by measuring key business characteristics which can be used to feedback into the decision process and guide operations in an attempt to improve strategic organisational performance. Other popular terms for this include; Enterprise PM (EPM), Corporate PM (CPM) Enterprise Information Systems (EIS), Decision Support Systems (DSS), Management Information Systems (MIS).

BPM: Cycle of setting objectives, monitoring performance and feeding back to new objectives.
Business Intelligence (BI) can be defined as the set of tools which allows end-users easy access to relevant information and the facility to analyse this to aid decision making. More widely the 'intelligence' is the insight which is derived from this analysis (eg. trends and correlations).

BI: Tools to Access & Analyse Data

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are strategically aligned corporate measures that are used to monitor, predict and anticipate the performance of the organisation. They form the basis of any the BPM solution and in an ideal world it should be possible to relate strategic KPIs to actual operational performance within the BI application.
KPIs provide a quick indication on the health of the organisation and guide management to the operational areas affecting performance.

In many companies analysis of data is complicated by the fact that data is fragmented within the business. This causes problems of duplication, inconsistent definitions, inconsistency, inaccuracy and wasted effort.
Silos of Data: Fragmented, Departmental Data Stores, often aligned with specific business areas.
Data Warehousing (DWH) is often the first step towards BI. A Data Warehouse is a centralised pool of data structured to facilitate access and analysis.

DWH: Centralised/Consolidated Data Store

The DWH will be populated from various sources (heterogeneous) using an ETL (Extract, Transform & Load) or data integration tool. This update may be done in regular periodic batches, as a one off load or even synchronised with the source data (real time).

ETL: The process of extracting data from a source system, transforming (or validating) it and loading it into a structured database.

A reporting (or BI) layer can then be used to analyse the consolidated data and create dashboards and user defined reports. A modelling layer can be used to integrate budgets and forecasting.

As these solutions get more complex, the definitions of the systems and what they are doing becomes more important. This is known as metadata and represents the data defining the actual data and its manipulation. Each part of the system has its own metadata defining what it is doing. Good management & use of metadata reduces development time, makes ongoing maintenance simpler and provides users with information about the source of the data, increasing their trust and understanding of it.

Metadata: Data about data, describing how and where it is being used, where it came from and what changes have been made to it.

Commercial Justifications

There is clear commercial justification to improve the quality of information used for decision making. A survey conducted by IDC found that the mean payback of BI implementation was 1.6 years and that 54% of businesses had a 5 year ROI of >101% and 20% had ROI > 1000%.

ROI on BI > 1000% from 20% of organisations

There are now also regulatory requirements to be considered. Sarbanes-Oxley requires that US listed companies disclose and monitor key risks and relevant performance indicators - both financial and non financial in their annual reports. A robust reporting infrastructure is essential for achieving this.

SarbOx requires disclosure of financial & non-financial KPIs

Poor data quality is a common barrier to accurate reporting and informed decision making. A good data quality strategy, encompassing non system issues such as user training and procedures can have a large impact. Consolidating data into a DWH can help ensure consistency and correct poor data, but it also provides an accurate measure of data quality allowing it to be managed more pro-actively.

Data Quality is vital and a formal data quality strategy is essential to continually manage and improve it.

Recent research (PMP Research) asked a broad cross section of organisations their opinion of their data quality before and after a DWH implementation.

- "Don't know" responses decreased from 17% to 7%
- "Bad" or "Very Bad" decreased from 40% to 9%
- Satisfactory (or better) increased from 43% to 84%

DWH implementations improve Data Quality.

Tools Market Overview

At present BI is seen as a significant IT growth area and as such everyone is trying to get onto the BI bandwagon:

ERP tools have BI solutions e.g SAP BW, Oracle Apps
CRM tools are doing it: Siebel Analytics,
ETL vendors are adding BI capabilities: Informatica
BI vendors are adding ETL tools: Business Objects (BO) Data Integrator (DI), Cognos Decision Stream
Database vendors are extending their BI & ETL tools:
Oracle: Oracle Warehouse Builder, EPM
Microsoft: SQL 2005, Integration Services, Reporting Services, Analytical Services

Improved Tools

Like all maturing markets, consolidation has taken place whereby fewer suppliers now cover more functionality. This is good for customers as more standardisation, better use of metadata and improved functionality is now easily available. BI tools today can now satisfy the most demanding customer's requirements for information.

Thinking and tools have moved on - we can now build rapid, business focussed solutions in small chunks - allowing business to see data, store knowledge, learn capabilities of new tools and refine their requirements during the project! Gone are the days of the massive data warehousing project, which was obsolete before it was completed.
A typical DWH project should provide usable results within 3 - 6 Months.

Advice & Best Practice

Initial Phase

Successful BI projects will never finish. It should perpetually evolve to meet the changing needs of the business. So first 'wins' need to come quickly and tools and techniques need to be flexible, quick to develop and quick to deploy.

Experience is Essential

Often we have been brought in to correct failed projects and it is frightening how many basic mistakes are made through inexperience. A data warehouse is fundamentally different to your operational systems and getting the initial design and infrastructure correct is crucial to satisfying business demands.

Keep Internal Control

We believe that BI is too close to the business and changes too fast to outsource. Expertise is required in the initial stages, to ensure that a solid infrastructure is in place (and use of the best tools and methods.) If sufficient experience is not available internally external resource can be useful in the initial stages but this MUST include skills transfer to internal resources. The DWH can then grow and evolve (with internal resourcing) to meet the changing needs of the business.

Ensure Management and User Buy In

It may sound obvious but internal knowledge and support is essential for the success of a DWH, yet 'Reporting' is often given a low priority and can easily be neglected unless it is supported at a senior business level. It is common to find that there is a limited knowledge of user requirements. It is also true that requirements will change over time both in response to changing business needs and to the findings/outcomes of the DWH implementation and use of new tools.

Strong Project Management

The complex and iterative nature of a data warehouse project requires strong project management. The relatively un-quantifiable risk around data quality needs managing along with changing user requirements. Plan for change and allow extra budget for the unexpected. Using rapid application development techniques (RAD) mitigates some of the risks by exposing them early in the project with the use of proto-types.

Educating the End Users

Do not under estimate the importance of training when implementing a new BI/ DWH solution. Trained users are 60% more successful in realising the benefits of BI than untrained users. But this training needs to consider specific data analysis techniques as well as how to use the BI tools. In the words of Gartner, "it is more critical to train users on how to analyse the data." Gartner goes on to say "... that focusing only on BI tool training can triple the workload of the IT help desk and result in user disillusionment. A user who is trained on the BI tool but does not know how to use it in the context of his or her BI/DWH environment will not be able to get the analytical results he or she needs...". Hence bespoke user training on your BI system and data is essential.

Careful planning of the training needs and making the best use of the different training mediums now available can overcome this issue. Look for training options such as: Structured classroom (on or off site), web based e-learning (CBT), on the job training & skills transfer, bespoke training around your solution & data.

Technical Overview

Information Portal: This allows users to manage & access reports and other information via a corporate web portal. As users create & demand more reports the ability to easily find, manage & distribute them is becoming more important.
Collaboration: The ability for the Information Portal to support communication between relevant people centred around the information in the portal. This could be discussion threads attached to reports or workflow around strategic goal performance.
Guided Analysis: The system guides users where to look next during data analysis. Taking knowledge from people's heads and placing it in the BI system.
Security: Access to system functionality and data (both rows and columns) can be controlled down to user level and based on your network logon.
Dashboards & Scorecards:
Providing management with a high level, graphical view of their business performance (KPIs) with easy drill down to the underlying operational detail.
Ad-hoc Reporting and Data Analysis: End users can easily extract data, analyse it (slice, dice & drill) and formally present it in reports & distribute them.
Formatted/ Standard Reports: Pre-defined, pixel perfect, often complex reports created by IT. The power of end user reporting tools and data warehousing is now making this type of report writing less technical and more business focussed.
Tight MS Office integration: More users depend on MS Office software, therefore the BI tool needs to seamlessly link into these tools.
Write Back: The BI portal should provide access to write back to the database to maintain: reference data, targets, forecasts, workflow.
Business Modelling/ Alerting: around centrally maintained data with pre-defined, end user maintained, business rules.
Real Time: As the source data changes it is instantly passed through to the user. Often via message queues.
Near Real Time: Source data changes are batched up and sent through on a short time period, say every few minutes - this requires special ETL techniques.
Batch Processing: Source Data is captured in bulk, say overnight, whilst the BI system is offline.

Relational Database Vs OLAP (cubes, slice & dice, pivot)

This is a complex argument, but put simply most things performed in an OLAP cube can be achieved in the relational world but may be slower both to execute and develop. As a rule of thumb, if you already work in a relational database environment, OLAP should only be necessary where analysis performance is an issue or you require specialist functionality, such as budgeting, forecasting or 'what if' modelling. The leading BI tools seamlessly provide access to data in either relational or OLAP form, making this primarily a technology decision rather than a business one.

Top Down or Bottom Up Approach?

The top down approach focuses on strategic goals and the business processes and organisational structure to support them. This may produce the ideal company processes but existing systems are unlikely to support them or provide the data necessary to measure them. This can lead to a strategy that is never adopted because there is no physical delivery and strategic goals cannot be measured.

The bottom up approach takes the existing systems and data and presents it to the business for them to measure & analyse. This may not produce the best strategic information due to the limited data available and data quality.

We recommend a compromise of both approaches: Build the pragmatic bottom up solution as a means to get accurate measures of the business and a better understanding of current processes, whilst performing a top down analysis to understand what the business needs strategically. The gap analysis of what can be achieved today and what is desired strategically will then provide the future direction for the solution and if the solution has been designed with change in mind, this should be relatively straight forward, building upon the system foundations already in place.

Advanced Business Intelligence

The following describes some advanced BI requirements that some organisations may want to consider: Delivering an integrated BPM solution which has business rules and workflow built in allowing the system to quickly guide the decision maker to the relevant information.

Collaboration and Guided Analysis to help manage the action required as a result of the information obtained.
More user friendly Data Mining and Predictive Analytics, where the system finds correlations between un-related data sets in order to find the 'golden nugget' of information.

More integration of BI information into the Front Office Systems e.g. a gold rated customer gets VIP treatment when they call in, data profiling to suggest this customer may churn, hence offer them an incentive to stay.

Increased usage of Real Time data.

End to end Data Lineage automatically captured by the tools. Better metadata management of the systems will mean that users can easily see where the data came from and what transformations it has undergone, improving the trust in the data & reports. Systems will also be self documenting providing users with more help information and simplifying ongoing maintenance.

Integrated, real time Data Quality Management as a means to measure accuracy of operational process performance. This would provide cross system validation, and verify business process performance by monitoring data accuracy, leading to better and more dynamic process modelling, business process re-engineering and hence efficiency gains.

Packaged Analytical Applications like finance systems in the 80's and packaged ERP (Enterprise Requirement Planning) in the 90's. Packaged BI may become the standard for this decade. Why build your own data warehouse and suite of reports and dashboards from scratch when your business is similar to many others? Buy packaged elements and use rapid deployment templates and tools to configure them to meet your precise needs. This rapid deployment capability then supports you as your business evolves.


BI for the masses: As information becomes more critical to manage operational efficiencies, more people need access to that information. Now the BI tools can technically and cost effectively provide more people with access to information, BI for the masses is now reality and can provide significant improvement to a business. The increased presence of Microsoft in the BI space will also increase usage of BI and make it more attractive. BusinessObjects' acquisition of Crystal and recent release of XI will also extend BI to more people, in and outside the organisation - now everyone can be given secure access to information!

Conclusion

The potential benefits from a BI/DWH implementation are huge but far too many companies fail to realise these through: lack of experience, poor design, poor selection and use of tools, poor management of data quality, poor or no project management, limited understanding of the importance of metadata, no realisation that if it is successful it will inevitably evolve and grow, limited awareness of the importance of training with all these areas to consider using a specialist consultancy such as IT Performs makes considerable sense.

Reference:
[1]  Clare Bryan, http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Clare_Bryan

Cognos 8 Business Intelligence an Overview

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IBM Cognos® 8 BI delivers the complete range of BI capabilities – Reporting, Analysis, Dashboards, and Scorecards -- on a single service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Author, share, and use reports that draw on data from all enterprise sources for better business decisions. Use reports, analysis, dashboards and scorecards to monitor business performance, analyze trends and measure results. A service-oriented architecture (SOA) makes it easy to deploy and manage.

    * Build reports, OLAP cubes, dashboards and scorecards using all data sources.
    * Proven scalability to hundreds of thousands of users.
    * Modular deployment lets you meet immediate user needs and expand or modify as needed.
    * Reporting: Write and deliver any type of report, adaptable to any data source, quickly and easily.
    * Analysis: Analyze and report against online analytical processing (OLAP) and dimensionally aware relational sources.
    * Scorecarding: Build scorecards to align teams and tactics with strategy.
    * Dashboards: Communicate complex information quickly with a range of easy-to-build dashboards.

Reference:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-intelligence/

impromptu cognos

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IBM® Cognos® Impromptu® lets you author virtually any report using Impromptu's superior frame-based reporting interface.

Create reports from any data source and distribute them to business users across the organization for better decisions and improved corporate performance. IBM Cognos Impromptu is based on the IBM Cognos Series 7 architecture.

    * Flexible report creation: frame-based report builder with features such as prompts, picklists, filters, and grouping, sorting and formatting capabilities.
    * Advanced reporting options let users build a wide variety of reports: grouped lists, crosstabs, charts and more.
    * Powerful summaries and calculations.
    * Linked reports: a report author can easily create a system of linked reports to explore the data and move from summary to detail.
    * Prompts and customization: IT can ensure that one report serves the needs of many.
    * Move up to IBM Cognos 8 BI - the next level of reporting on a new Web services-based, service oriented architecture.

Article Source:
[1] http://www.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/series7/impromptu/

What is business intelligence studio

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Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) is the IDE from Microsoft used for developing data analysis and Business Intelligence solutions utilizing the Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, Reporting Services and Integration Services. It is based on the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment but customizes with the SQL Server services-specific extensions and project types, including tools, controls and projects for reports, ETL dataflows, OLAP cubes and data mining structure.

Reference:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Intelligence_Development_Studio
  

cognos data warehouse

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If you want to hear the cognos data warehouse, you can refer to mydbwi blog.

Mydwbi blog aims at data warehousing and business intelligence technical aspects. We would particularly like to point out a very interesting IBM Cognos 8 Framework Manager technical tutorial and blog.
Among other useful tips, it shows how to create a Time Dimension in Framework Manager, how to publish a package after modifying a model without impacting existing reports or switch to a SunOne Directory Server.

Although the site is partially in Chinese, there is an English version of the most interesting articles. The blog covers such technologies as Cognos, Infromatica, Datastage, MicroStrategy, BO, NCR, Oracle, MS SQL Server and Sybase.

Reference:
[1] http://www.bi-dw.info/bidw247.html

Cognos Training Tips

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Did you implement Cognos Business Intelligence at your organization? after that, you need Cognos training to make sure all your staff be familiar with Cognos. However, cognos training is not cheap. Since then, there is  a need some tips to held cognos training. Have a look here !

Cognos is a business intelligence software from IBM. Many people who have posted on their company Cognos to improve and track the performance of management. However, it is necessary to have some trained professionals in the home while all the organizations that adapt to the software. Cognos training can be taken from a certified Cognos Solution Provider. Before going in for training programs, make sure that the consultants own certified training institute and has deep hands-on knowledge and experience with handling the software.

Cognos training course curriculum shall consist of practical experience, workshops, lectures on the use of data, case studies, etc. Also, check whether the institution has a flexible choice of class time, because most of the time, you will be expected to manage the employment and training simultaneously.

Instead of traditional classroom training, experience in a more practical style tutorial workshops. The workshop builds skills through increasingly complex assignments where the teacher lived as a mentor rather than lecturer. In addition, during the workshop, emphasizing the use of data source you choose. More focus on learning tool rather than trying to understand foreign demo data. Take seriously your case studies for classroom training. Case studies are real life experiences that will enhance your knowledge base and, at the same time, provide information about real life situations along with examples. They are designed to make you more productive.

Article Source:
[1]  Helena Paulson, http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Helena_Paulson

cognos business intelligence

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More than 23,000 leading companies and organizations around the world choose Cognos performance management solutions. Use business intelligence software to understand performance and make better decisions. Use financial performance management software to set targets and allocate the resources to achieve them.

For further information about Cognos Business Intelligence and Financial Performance Management, Cognos software, services, best practices and support you can refer at [1].

Reference:
[1] http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/

sharepoint business intelligence

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Microsoft give some reliable business intelligence solutions for your organization. One of them is Micorosoft sharepoint. This Blog [1] reveals How sharepoint business intelligence cope with your business problem.

With the exciting changes taking place in Microsoft Business Intelligence, [1] discusses the key things with you that are happening in SharePoint BI, and how you can learn about them from across the company.  Expect to see guest posts and videos, demonstrations, and news.  Your feedback and input are welcomed as It discuss Business Intelligence in SharePoint.

Reference:
[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepointbi/

microsoft sql server 2008 business intelligence

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Microsoft SQL Server 2008 provides a scalable Business Intelligence platform optimized for data integration, reporting, and analysis, enabling organizations to deliver intelligence where users want it.

Top New Features

• Create high-performance Analysis Services solutions with optimized cube designers, subspace computation, and MOLAP-enabled writeback capabilities
• Implement enterprise-scale Reporting Services solutions through new on-demand processing and instance-based rendering
• Build flexible and effective reports with the new Tablix data structure and rich formatting capabilities
• Expand reach, and empower more users through optimized integration with the 2007 Microsoft Office system

Use the enterprise-scale data warehouse platform of SQL Server 2008 to efficiently implement and manage unified storage for all of your business data.

Boost data warehouse performance

•  Integrate large volumes of data into your data warehouse faster by using SQL Server 2008 Integration Services, and consolidate real-time data by capturing data changes
•  Increase the manageability and performance of large tables with partitioning, which enables you to manage growing volumes of data and users of your SQL Server 2008 data warehouse more efficiently
• Consolidate all data for optimized reporting and analysis
• Work with all of your data and interact the way you want through support for both relational and non-relational data, including new data types such as FILESTREAM & Spatial
• Incorporate data from multiple sources directly into a single report

Use the data source view to integrate data from across the enterprise and create a Unified Dimension Model that consolidates data from heterogeneous, enterprise-wide data stores, such as SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, SAP and Teradata, to create a holistic view of your business, helping end users gain enterprise-wide insight.

Article Source and Further Reading:
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/business-intelligence.aspx

Business Intelligence Management

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Management is the backbone of the company. The stronger of the spine, the more successful a company will be. When the world has become a global village, internal business now needs more efficient management schemes to run the business smoothly. Organizations need to implement domestic policies internationally. Franchised dealers across the world provided by the management policy remains the same. management is carried out so as to maintain a tight competition. This will not be easy for companies to run such synchronized management without any tool. One is the management of business intelligence tools. Inside, a management technology combined with an application to collect data and then analyze the information that the company's operations.

Every entrepreneur wants to have a birds-eye view of the business. The view that will provide them with knowledge about the factors that influence upon their business. these factors may be sales, production, internal operations, etc. Business intelligence is a system that provides employers with a matrix that helps them to make better decisions for the company. For a successful business entrepreneur must follow a pattern where the market share changes. He must observe the changes in customer behavior and their shopping patterns. He should also understand the ability of the company and conditions in the market. Excellent knowledge of all the needs of employers to make adjustments on the spot less. Business intelligence helps them to determine and adjust the effective trend. Business intelligence also helps the analyst with information about the country's economic and market factors. This system provides employers with an intimate knowledge of the internal operations of business.

For the backbone of a strong management it is mandatory that everyone from employees involved in labor sector should be aware of what is happening around them. Business intelligence helps companies in this way also. Applications and technology allows companies to distribute information evenly among employees. As a result, companies can make more accurate business decisions.

The Company operates a data analysis to understand what they have done in the past and what they should do in the near future. But this test is not so easy. For unlimited data and information obtained is too ambiguous. So, many companies are the result of a relationship with guesswork. Business intelligence helps companies to develop appropriate data based business decisions. When an efficient business intelligence to improve communications between departments, to coordinating activities very easily.

In the past businesses had to retrieve data from a source non-automatic or manual. Business can not properly analyze the data. But after the introduction of IT (information technology) to collect data automatically-which has become much easier and confirmed the correct one. Rapidly changing world. People's demand is a more efficient service from businesses. To stay competitive in the market that the company should exceed customer expectations. As a result the company relies on business intelligence for their own future trends and events. Business users' do not want to wait for information. Information should alway

By Gavin Keller, Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gavin_Keller

common mistakes in business intelligence strategy

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In a recent study by Gartner, Inc., a leading IT research and advisory company, a list of disability strategy - or no strategy at all - as one of nine "serious mistake" in the Business Intelligence (BI) project implementation. A good BI strategy, on the other hand, is the key to a successful implementation, helping to maximize return on IT investment.

How do you know if your BI strategy was flawed? Here are seven signs - how many applied in your organization?

1. BI systems are not seen as relevant.
This often indicates a lack of consultation throughout the organization. This causes a lack of buy-ins, and potential users do not see what the BI system has to do with them. If the beneficiaries of the system is not involved in the design of these systems may not be successful if implemented. BI strategy, if any, not including the requirement to consult widely internally.

2. Seeking strategic advice from the vendor
An upper-dependence on software vendors that could cause conflicts of interest where the vendor siezes chance to get what they want (more sales) at the expense of what the organization needs (appropriate use of the software).

The most common example of this would be a solution where overselling OLAP cube reporting application will do a better job for users who are concerned. OLAP cubes provide the information summarized in the hierarchy, and there are many advantages to this, but the ease of reporting is not always one of them. In addition, the number of users for whom the appropriate OLAP cubes are almost always less than those who need a standard reporting applications.

3. Continuation of past
Doing things "like they always do" is the enemy of a good BI implementation. This can too often lead to attempts to cut the budget, and often result in inappropriate decisions, such as a report from a spreadsheet where what is needed is a fair assessment of delivery of BI tools that are available. The use of solutions that exist only because they're in place is a sure sign of flawed strategy, and is very important to be aware of the latest BI methodology and applications.

Changing the habits of a person is often not easy, and may require training, but a certain level of change needed if you want to maximize the benefits of BI for your organization.

4. Management of hot air balloons
When budgets start out of control, you start seeing a lot of pet projects thrown into the sea. This is what I call management by "hot-air balloon." Like a hot air balloon, remove the goods from the project makes a lot lighter and more buoyant. The problem is, this process also makes a lot of BI projects is less functional and effective.

The problem is, more often than not, failed to properly assess the project cost in the first place. Does the project have been split to start by making the cost more manageable? The message here is, better or less and give a promise, than promise the world and let people at home when reality hits the economy.

5. Information silos
A silo of information occurs when the data from one computer system can not communicate with each other. This is the kind of problems that the project Business Intelligence with a good strategic plan to identify and correct.

gross information is very costly to an organization because the benefits of hidden information within the organization to that part. This problem is usually solved by making the strategic decision to create and maintain a data warehouse. A data warehouse collates data from various places into a series of one or more''market data, in the process of reform and re-calculating the data to make it more useful for Business Intelligence.

6. Inaccurate metrics
Metric (I use that word as the BI vendors like Cognos IBM to use it) to monitor changes in the months in the performance and are often based on calculations of the various items of data. They can be inaccurate in several ways. For example, data can be entered incorrectly, or miscalculated because the metric is defined wrong. Or that his own calculations could be wrong. Often there is no single definition of metrics - a strategic mistake - or they may over-reliance on sources of data are inherently unstable, such as spreadsheets. This is a strategic mistake, because they can be overcome by policy decisions such as avoiding the spreadsheet input as possible and publish a dictionary metrics to the organization as a whole.

7. There is no sustainable development of BI systems.
Unlike, for example, accounting systems or CRM (customer relationship management) systems, Business Intelligence adds value to the system being reviewed and improved continuously. The project has a 'cycle' which involves the BI review your needs regularly. New metrics and KPIs (key performance indicators) are found, these need to be added to the data warehouse and made available to appropriate managers. New data mart that is not within the scope of the original project may come on board in later stages.

Article Source:
Copyright 2008 Clive Margolis, at http://www.acestar.co.uk/
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Clive_Margolis

microsoft business intelligence

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Microsoft business intelligence solutions build on your existing investments so employees gain access to accurate, up-to-date information for better, more relevant decision making.

The BI Solutions integrate the strengths of SQL Server, Sharepoint and Office on a single platform to empower informed decision-making that moves your business forward.

Further Information about microsoft business intelligence, you can acces at : http://www.microsoft.com/bi/

real time data warehousing

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Also known as active data warehousing, real time data warehousing is the process of storing and analyzing data across multiple types of storage systems. Companies tend to use this approach in an ongoing effort to maximize the benefits from various forms of business intelligence, especially in terms of positioning the company for growth through sales. By capturing the information that becomes available and the assimilation of data with historical information, it is possible to predict shifts in customer demand, and develop new marketing strategies that will attract new customers.

Basic process real time data warehousing requires transactional data added to the database, such as placing orders or invoicing system, immediately analyzed, classified, and linked to information that has been shed from the previous transaction. Ideally, the additional information will yield additional information that helps to show the trend in purchases of goods or services offered by the company, the generation of profits or losses.

With assimilation and the rate of transactions and other data occurs, companies can move more quickly to take advantage of the trends that have the potential to recover significant business. Because real-time data warehousing process automatically, no need for anyone to turn this trickle of data from various transactional databases to a central database in real time. So, it is possible to access bank information is updated every time, and using data for planning future projects or actions that will be in accordance with corporate interests.

The process of data mining in real time can also include automatic generation of reports tailored to the needs of end users. Design a data warehouse often allows users to select from a series of pre-programmed report formats, or use a tool built into the software package to create a special report that manage data in many ways. This versatile data warehouse architecture makes it easy for companies of various sizes and related to different areas to use the same basic software, but adjusts the use software in accordance with their respective needs.

Most real-time data warehousing package also allows on-demand report generation and also on the schedule you set. This can be very helpful, as they may submit a request for a sudden moment, and the answer in seconds or minutes. For example, if a sales manager presented with a question about the sales day today is along the lines of a particular product, he can only frame the query, has a software pull-up-to-minute data, and reports that provide information with ease. other conventional methods would require up to half an hour or more to manage what real time warehouses can be set in less than three minutes.

Article Source:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-real-time-data-warehousing.htm

data warehouse appliance

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Usually people think that the data warehouse appliance is all the burden of storing old data, but this is not the full facts. In addition to the archive, also revealed large amounts of data from different sources into a single comprehensive database, so users can examine and manipulate the content as needed. Users will only have one database, making it important for him to access and data feeds from various sources, for information, which requires. Data warehousing tools are tried and tested way of checking information to make a survey of the cluster statistics and other content, so the company can plan the future of intelligence and can know the outcome of the process. the correct use of content can make a big difference with the way in which trade can evolve and be developed, because it allows the production of projections and estimates. This data can be used to create a business module, which helps users to focus on business. In addition, help in cutting costs and making better use of resources that can be accessed.

There is a big difference between data warehousing and business intelligence tools. Business intelligence uses various methods to compare and interpret the information and content, the motive to increase efficiency. Advanced content management software allows to provide useful information for the smooth business. Data warehouse appliance can be referred to as pot, which consists of various kinds of information. With help from the dash board, reports, analysis, and various content can be assimilated and can be used. Furthermore, both the data warehouse appliance as well as cooperation in the intelligence business to provide end users the right information needed. The employees, who are required to use this application, must be well trained in building a database and management. They must be proficient in statistics, to take full advantage of the given application.

By Moon Saud, Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Moon_Saud

supply chain performance metrics

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supply chain is where the set of resources and related procedures. Typically, this begins with the provision of raw materials to be used and then extends to product delivery to customers. These are important things that must be considered in terms of the company because of the fact that this is also connected to other departments, including customer service and communications center. With great importance, many companies are now ensuring that their supply chain management taken care of properly. This will enable them to meet their customer demand with ease. This is why they have created to measure supply chain to guide them with a system that covers the entire material flow and business information to end consumers.

So what steps the supply chain? Actually there are two categories in which these principles will be classified. They are qualitative and quantitative measures. At first, this is where customer satisfaction is measured and the quality of products delivered. On the other hand, quantitative measures are those which are calculated as the time between order and delivery process, the response of the supply chain in terms of time involved, the utilization of resources and delivery performance. Many studies have shown that the quantitative performance of a truly effective and therefore should be given all the attention they need.

Supply chain performance measurement is usually carried out by the company on a regular basis. This will give a description of what he should do so that he can improve the health of this section and the entire company as well. But this requires a multidimensional strategy that will discuss how the company will present to customer service. Typically, the steps are the same supply chain with other steps in the company. However, one can observe that there is a special purpose here is to make every supply chain metrics that are different from others.

quantitative measure supply chain is broken into the classification: financial and non financial. At last, these include cycle time, inventory levels, customer service and level of resource utilization. These are all important in such a way that this will help the company saw improvements as well as malfunctions in the delivery process, especially in the lead or cycle time. Timeline of delivery allows the owner to determine precisely how well the organization responded to the call of their customers and the result will look through the report.

Meanwhile, financial measures are those which consist of material costs, revenues received from products sold, the cost of each shipment and transportation, the cost for the supply of perishable ended, penalties for late or incorrect delivery, credit from suppliers for their mistakes as well as on the back release schedule and cost of goods returned by customers.

By Sam Miller, Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sam_Miller

hospital performance metrics

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What clinics and shops laundering have in common? They both use the metric system performance. Yes, every business operation today in all industries now require the use of scorecards and other performance measuring tools. This is because everything in business takes time, effort, and money must be measurable. If you can not measure your business, how then can you possibly profitable business? The actual risk is not in the business know the threat but to know the variety. Fortunately, the manager of the clinic to find a friend in clinical metrics.

Fortunately, the manager of the clinic, there is no way to know the measured aspects of clinic operations. There are ways to find out more, and supplies below. There are ways to determine if adequate medical facilities for the number of patients who are served or not. There are methods to determine if treatment is successful or not. There are several ways to determine whether an upgrade of medical equipment is a priority or not. And there is even a system to identify compliance with the clinic for health insurance and accreditation requirements.

Metrics for clinical operations, in short, is knowing the good manners and bad business. Typically, managers will take the bad, then change or improve it. But most of the time, managers increase the good and spend extra to make it more useful. In using the metric to evaluate the clinical performance, there are various types of managers can be used. Four types of metrics for clinical focus on key aspects such as health insurance, health, medicine, and health facilities.

Health care industry could become a vast industry to handle. However, measuring the medical aspects of the clinics is simple. Government and accreditation agencies even require the clinic to have a uniform set of key performance indicators only for the standardization of the measurement scheme. However, some clinics may provide special services for specific markets. Therefore, there needs to be adjusted to the needs wise key performance indicators. Some custom KPIs include infection control and patient waiting time. Major metrics deal with the administration of clinical, patient satisfaction and service, emergency services, and financial operations. Sample metrics might include aspects such as clinical negligence, death within one month of operations, readmission to hospital discharge in one month, and death within one month bypass surgery.

The second type of transaction metrics with health insurance. This is an important aspect for a business that involves the patient's health and welfare at risk. This aspect is the focus on the customer. And can cover the financial, operations, customers, and services. Examples of metrics is a new business premiums, the IRR on new business, external funds under management and operating profit.

Metrics on medical supplies do more than just inventory valuation. They also include review of expired drugs, the right shelf, or storage of medication, proper administration of medications, and fair price for drugs, and other equipment. Example metrics can include a variety of products, market diversification, contract vendors, and representatives of producers.

The presence of medical equipment and qualified staff will be in vain without proper health care facilities. That's usually the size of the customer perspective, and social accountability. In short, the clinic itself reflects the quality of service.

When buying a clinical metric system, it is very important then to find the four main indicators. Curiously, all four metrics are available as a bundle or package. Knowing what you have to measure the metric system will give you the edge clinics to improve and excel.

By Sam Miller, Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sam_Miller

data warehouse best practices

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Data Warehousing is the innovation of the 90s who promised to change the landscape for good data. How far have we come? Many vendors have entered the market because it makes sense to bring together data from throughout the organization, and this will continue to make sense of the future.

How large a data warehouse market will grow no one knows yet. But it must still growing rapidly, and currently estimated at 4.5 billion dollars per year (IDC).

1. Why Run Into Data Warehouse Project Scope Creep?

To quote Bill Inmon (teacher and author of several books on Data Warehousing) "Traditional project begins with requirements and ends with data Data Warehousing. The project begins with data and end with the requirements." Once this project will take place, users will find new applications, and with it will come new demands for data. Interestingly, these projects are often justified by moving the T & R work away from "the data. What we have seen is that the first thing that happens immediately after the project is that it gives more demand for special requests submitted to this data is the same person''. This may appear to undermine the initial business case but actually signal the beginning of the creation of value from DWH project.

2. Star Schema Entity Relationship Model Versus?

There has been a major debate in society about the benefits of different data models. At the risk of over simplifying: ER models tend to have better performance (processing time) to end users, and is often regarded as "easier" to be understood by end users. Drawbacks is that the ER model requires more disk space, and, because of intrinsic redundancy in the data, have a consistency problem from the perspective of maintenance. Having said this, it seems that the practice is often some combination of the two can not be avoided in practical settings, although the preference (ER or Star) of the chief architects. Overall, the Star model seems to have gained the most ground.

3. Importance of Data Warehouse Business Case

Much has been written about the business case for Data Warehouse. What happened to good business case? IT savings everywhere in the business case DWH. The important thing is to not restrict to 'genuine savings', but to connect to the main business processes as much as possible. For example, more rapid cycle changes to the selection list fine (if the calculated charge per hour), but it's better if the revenue from the acquisition of more customers that follow from this choice can be tied into a relationship not only will revenue growth rather than savings for make a business case that is more balanced, more important is the intrinsic business buy-in results from a direct connection to the company's bottom line. These days, changes in legislation (especially the Sarbanes-Oxley) plays a major role in justifying the business case. This may be either through a higher company valuation to collect information that is transparent, or, lack of sleep the night for the CEO, which of course is priceless ...

4. Why Data Warehouse Project 'Do not' Go Wrong?

Actually, the Data Warehouse projects sometimes fail. But, they fail so rarely, that it is actually very hard to believe ... Especially after talking to so many end-user satisfaction. And there are many ways the project could be one of the Data Warehouse. Delivery on time, data administration problems, and data can not be avoided the issue of quality for food systems. Corporate politics (see Tip 7) may be the best explanation for this phenomenon at close to 100% success rate DWH project. In my experience, the reason why failures or 'semi-fail' can go unnoticed is the senior management either because they do not realize, or, say, "motivated" to talk about misspending company funds. As a result, not enough studied. Maybe we as consultants have a stake in this as well, because it ensures much business the industry is in progress ... J

5. What is different about Data Warehousing Web?

Kimball & Merz (2000): "Although this clickstream data in many cases is raw and real, have the potential to provide unprecedented detail about every move made by every human being by using Web media." Subatomic nature of clickstream data raises unique challenges. There is little built in feedback mechanisms to ensure data quality, compared with other data streams. The relationship between user and server logs record the mouse clicks are not so tight as in "traditional processing" transaction because of technical issues such as proxy servers and caching. Because of these differences, IT people need to adjust to the web process flow, rather than the process of adapting to the needs of IT as an interface common to most other DWH.

6. Should the data contained in the Data Warehouse?

Incoming data DWH ultimately determine its place in the organization. A "let's load all the data, to be" safe attitude is a sure way to derail your DWH project. Options for what should and should not be included needs to be created since the beginning, so that projects are managed. After the proven success of the delivered, deployed, and profitably exploited DWH, there will always be a place to put funds previously neglected interface. Given the anticipated life cycle of the DWH, it makes sense to consciously exclude certain sources. Options such as what data to include the need is driven by business considerations, and in particular reference to the company's bottom line. If you can not show how the data will be used profitably, they stay out! See also tip # 3.

7. Data Warehousing & Company Politics

Data warehouses have an impact on corporate bottom lines. Therefore, they may be candidates for turf battles, and also at risk of being "small changes" in negotiating budget allocations. None of the consideration of the benefits of long-term corporate goals. Managing projects is quite difficult because the DWH, and budget issues should not be made more difficult than it already is. Because DWH investment in current income and is located in the future, even more important to secure funds through sound business case and buy-ins from the appropriate (high) level of management. See also Tip # 3. Access to data means power, and talking about power management is one of the greatest taboos still exist. Sensitive as they are, even more easily discussed the budget ...

8. Trap Data Warehouse Project

Some 'frequently repeated barrier' on-time delivery route data warehouse project:

    * ETL process has eaten so much time (and still need to be "babysitters"), that little if any time left to develop applications that are required to exploit DWH
    * Some of the data needed, but were not not available, or not timely
    * Maintenance required for tuning, indexing, and backup and recovery is very underrated
    * Various ways of calculating the same phenomenon lead to different results, and no one could convince explain the difference (s)
    * Data is loaded (and recombination) which turned out to contain previously unknown inconsistencies in the source system, the 'classical' data quality problems that travel DWH projects
    * Metadata is less, and developer of the amount spent so much time figuring out what the field really means''


9. DWH Hardware and Software Go Hand in Hand

In Data Warehousing, not about the hardware, and not about the software: it is about the perfect integration of a second. Those who start their projects from both ends, will pay dearly for this mistake. The reasons are:

• In terms of price / performance, new, pre-integrated hardware-software combination takes the lead

° of the project management perspective, you do not want to caught between vendors when a proposed solution does not work as expected

· Database tuning and indexing is very important and very complex work, it should be left to specialists (in-house trained)

10. Performance is key

Although I do not often find this technology has become an important factor in the acceptance of the Data Warehouse, there is no other factor will be as important as performance. As size increased from time to time, this factor becomes more important. There are three reasons for this:

   1. performance has a major impact on the development of the velocity (initial load is always very time consuming), and therefore the overall maturity at the time of delivery DWH
   2. performance can make or break the end-user acceptance, particularly the predictability of performance
   3. performance has a tremendous impact on end-user productivity, the main driver of business pay-off

By Tom Breur, Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tom_Breur

financial metrics

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Every aspect of the business is measured by financial metrics. This is necessary to measure whether any investment worth keeping or if there is a process of significant change will affect financial firms negatively or positively. What is measured here also is the financial value of each project undertaken, especially if the project will impact operations. Very measure the financial goals is to cut costs or improve how the money is spent throughout the organization.

There are principles that must be followed so that the numbers will be calculated are accurate and true. If calculated, covering the previous financial data that should never be part of the metric to begin with, this would indicate a figure that is not balanced. This action plan and understanding of these issues will be contaminated and it is possible that the organization would take the wrong direction.

On

Every time financial concerns, overhead costs should be included in the calculation of financial revenue. Overhead costs include money spent on support groups that do not actually produce revenue. This includes the salaries of individuals working in the Department of Human Resources. This also includes security officials and others who work with specific tasks that can be considered as add-ons. We may also include costs incurred on materials, such as bond paper and office supplies. When these figures came out, one will immediately see when and where to cut costs.

Future Project Costs

It is also wise that the cost of future projects included in the calculation. It has to do with costs to be incurred if the projects materialize. The downside of this is that some people might want to hinder the progress of the project after they saw the costs involved. Must be well defined what the project revenues will bring so this does not happen.

Historical Data

A mistake that many managers make in the financial calculations and come back is that they factor in historical data and items paid which should not be included in the report. For example, there is no balance in the previous month including the cost if you count only for this month. This will give you an accurate prediction. Including historical data on anything if you calculate annual income, or if you have a quarterly business review. Always make sure that the timeframe in accordance with the actual financial review.

Waiting Costs and Revenues

The financial statements should also contain the cost of debt that should have been delayed or paid in the period given. Many companies have debts that they have to pay monthly and these figures should be factored in the financial statements to ensure accuracy. However, the total cost per year should not be added. This means that if the review for the financial revenues only for three months, the assets and liabilities shall include only what is present and what maturity of three months.

Money is a descendant of any business. Please note that if the financial metrics are calculated in the wrong way, this also resulted in an action plan to mislead, so putting the organization far in vain, not up.

By Sam Miller, Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sam_Miller

key performance indicators metrics

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This article give you enlightenment on What a Key Performance Indicators Solutions Company Does For Your Busines.

Knowing your business performance at a certain time is very important to achieve reasonable profit margins. In the past, managers rely entirely on financial measures or metrics. But despite the financial metric is useful in analyzing the performance of the past, they did not tell you what you should do to achieve success in the future. This is where the importance of a company's key performance indicator solution into the picture.

The advantage of using key performance indicators (KPI) is that they cover all critical areas of your company's operations. You can measure the effectiveness of the production, marketing, sales, and even employee development programs by comparing the actual output against predetermined targets.

Obviously the first step towards building a reliable indicator for formulating your strategic plan. You can not know where you are unless you know where you want to be after three or five years. This means that the KPIs you must, first and foremost direction. This means that they should tell you where to go. Questions must be asked and answers to make credible KPI is: "Where do you want your company to be after three or five years?" The answers to these questions provide direction and ensure that strict action successfully docked.

Of course you must include the strategic plan is built around customer service goals, achieve market competitiveness, and caring for stakeholders. You want to increase the number of customers and encourage them to return. You want to be able to compete with other businesses that produce similar products. You want to satisfy your partner, your employees, suppliers, and almost all the people you do business with. KPIs you must provide you with information about whether you are good or not in these areas.

When your company is small and new start, you will probably find it difficult to identify KPIs and metrics needed to come up with programs, activities, and routines that can easily be measured against objectives, plans and objectives. Fortunately for you, there are now many business consulting firm that focuses on helping companies find solutions that are suitable for all types of management problems.

The good will help you identify the KPIs and metrics and tools to offer, mostly in the form of a software application that will allow you to monitor the performance of different working units of your company. In every business, monitoring staff performance, the company processes, and external developments, market trends, new products, new technology, and the like, is always important to make wise decisions on what strategies, approaches, and policies to implement. This seems a bit much even for established companies, perhaps more for them because of the volume of transactions and the presence of many work units. Integrate all the tasks involved in a single working system is very difficult.

A key indicator of corporate performance management system solution would be to evaluate and identify weaknesses and strengths, and from there, it will recommend appropriate changes and provide tools that will improve management processes, particularly monitoring and analysis of data collected from the various aspects of company operations. However, you should consider consulting the price of one. The best way to do this is to ensure that what they offer fits your needs.

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key performance metrics

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One very important thing in designing dashboard is deciding key performance metrics, this article gives you understanding on what key performance metrics.

Performance metrics measure the selected dimensions of the organization to enable management to assess the position and take appropriate action to move towards the target. The main objective is to increase performance throughout the whole host of dimensions as selected by the organization's leadership. In addition, performance metrics to help management, increase organizational effectiveness, efficiency and internal controls.

To become the most value for management, performance metrics should ideally be specific, measurable enough, cheap, easy to communicate, and able to guide action. Various software packages are available to help management prepare, analyze and report data needed for the task.

Use of performance metrics requires four steps - select key issues, critical processes and customers that require the measurement results; develop relevant metrics; determine the target, and, finally, the performance moves toward the target.

Perhaps the most famous performance metrics are associated with financial performance. For this purpose, the management has been available all line items included in financial statements shall be added externally reported internal management reports. financial statement line item covering popular concepts such as total revenue, earnings before interest and taxes, interest expense, income after tax, total liabilities, and net cash flow.

This financial line item, in turn, is used for the analysis of financial ratios. This technique involves two or more related items of common lines in order to examine key areas of financial performance. These areas include revenue and cost behavior, balance sheet strength, capital structure, cash flow generation and profitability. The main audience for financial metrics is the management and owners of the organization, namely, the shareholders.

Early 1980s, the organization and various stakeholder groups they began to articulate the need for a set of broader performance metric, which reached more than financial performance. They called for the metric that measures the performance of the organization in connection with customers, employees, and society at large.

To fill the gap, the performance metrics framework known as the Balanced Scorecard emerged in the early 1990s. Its metric covers four areas - financial, customer, business process plus learning and growth. Balanced scorecard quickly adopted by many organizations in the private sector, government officials and non-profit sector. This remains an important performance management tool today.

Governance, environment, carbon emissions and climate change have all become areas of particular focus in recent years pushed the organization to respond by developing metrics to communicate performance in this problem.

Performance metrics are measured for an organization to routinely compared with the values of the past to ensure improvements are being achieved. In addition, they must be compared with metrics of peer group organization. This latter ratio is known as benchmarking and an important method for an organization to understand and monitor the relative competitive position.

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http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kevin_Shaper

performance metrics

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This article give you guidance how to measure the business performance using performance metrics.

Performance metrics measure the selected dimensions of the organization to enable management to assess the position and take appropriate action to move towards the target. The main objective is to increase performance throughout the whole host of dimensions as selected by the organization's leadership. In addition, performance metrics to help management, increase organizational effectiveness, efficiency and internal controls.

To become the most value for management, performance metrics should ideally be specific, measurable enough, cheap, easy to communicate, and able to guide action. Various software packages are available to help management prepare, analyze and report data needed for the task.

Use of performance metrics requires four steps - select key issues, critical processes and customers that require the measurement results; develop relevant metrics; determine the target, and, finally, the performance moves toward the target.

Perhaps the most famous performance metrics are associated with financial performance. For this purpose, the management has been available all line items included in financial statements shall be added externally reported internal management reports. financial statement line item covering popular concepts such as total revenue, earnings before interest and taxes, interest expense, income after tax, total liabilities, and net cash flow.

This financial line item, in turn, is used for the analysis of financial ratios. This technique involves two or more related items of common lines in order to examine key areas of financial performance. These areas include revenue and cost behavior, balance sheet strength, capital structure, cash flow generation and profitability. The main audience for financial metrics is the management and owners of the organization, namely, the shareholders.

Early 1980s, the organization and various stakeholder groups they began to articulate the need for a set of broader performance metric, which reached more than financial performance. They called for the metric that measures the performance of the organization in connection with customers, employees, and society at large.

To fill the gap, the performance metrics framework known as the Balanced Scorecard emerged in the early 1990s. Its metric covers four areas - financial, customer, business process plus learning and growth. Balanced scorecard quickly adopted by many organizations in the private sector, government officials and non-profit sector. This remains an important performance management tool today.

Governance, environment, carbon emissions and climate change have all become areas of particular focus in recent years pushed the organization to respond by developing metrics to communicate performance in this problem.

Performance metrics are measured for an organization to routinely compared with the values of the past to ensure improvements are being achieved. In addition, they must be compared with metrics of peer group organization. This latter ratio is known as benchmarking and an important method for an organization to understand and monitor the relative competitive position.

Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kevin_Shaper