Business intelligence and business information management

Keywords

Data, Information, Knowledge, Knowledge Management, Intelligence, Decision Support Systems, Data Warehousing.

Data: describe the reality or perception of human, corporate, institutional, community existence, etc. Computers store and process data. At the lowest level the data is meaningless.

Information: it is what a person is capable of understanding about reality. Information systems today use computers to process and present data in a human-friendly format.

Knowledge: it is the wealth of information used in the decision-making process.

Data Warehousing: the process of organizing information in a way that creates data-driven knowledge. Software products that present this knowledge to users are sometimes called Business Intelligence Tools.

Knowledge Management is the discipline that seeks to focus the use of Information Technologies on people, so that they and their organizations learn to use resources and sources of information to achieve strategic objectives.

2. Summary

This article focuses on highlighting the importance of optimizing information management in organizations, as a resource that allows them to position themselves in the current globalized and hypercompetitive environment, and make decisions with a lower degree of uncertainty in the face of the various events presented in the scenarios current scenarios of enormous complexity and diversity.

Advances in Information Technologies offer high-capacity tools that have been developed as support applications for decision-making, at various levels of organizations, generating knowledge, the basis for Business Intelligence. Knowledge management develops the core competencies in organizations. Opinions of renowned authors about the relevance of the information are presented. The tools that support decision-making are described in a very general way, as well as the strategic advantage of Business Intelligence.

3. Content

If high blood pressure is a problem that requires attention, today's hyper-information also requires a solution….

The literature collects numerous research works that have tried to respond to the challenge of change. In recent years, there has been the emergence of new models and theories that seek to facilitate the understanding and direction of today's large and complex organizations (Teece, Pisano & Shuen, 1997; Rajagopalan & Rajagopalan & Spreitzer, 1997, Elfring, 1997)

Most of these models point out various tools to apply and characteristics that facilitate the change process, such as the ability to innovate and learn, total quality and continuous improvement, the importance of human resources, reengineering, outsourcing, or customer orientation, to name just a few of the most cited factors. An observation of this relationship allows us to detect two main topics of interest: the change or dynamic approach to problems and the development of the resources and capacities of the organization. This supposes, in other words, a convergence between interest in the market - maintaining the highest degree of adjustment possible with its evolution - and interest in the company's internal resources and capabilities. That is, change implies the challenge, not without paradox,to renew the organization without destroying the basic capabilities that generate competitive advantages (Hamel & Prahalad, 1998; Fernández and Fernández, 1998). It is about finding a balance between the exploitation of the company's resources, achieving profitability in the short term, in an environment that changes at great speed, and the exploration to innovate and create new ideas and capabilities that cause change (March, 1998).

Faced with this challenge, some authors propose the need to achieve a form of organization that breaks traditional limits. An organization with more flexible structures that overcomes the four most frequent types of borders: vertical or hierarchical borders, between people; horizontal, between functions and disciplines; external, with suppliers, clients, companies and other stakeholders; and geographic, with nations, cultures and markets. The new factors of success, in the hypercompetitive environment, reveal the dysfunctionality of these limits. The transformation of the organizations of the future will not come so much from a reaction to economic and social changes, as from internal changes led by their managers (Guillart & Kelly) (1999). Strategic changes built with the organization's resources,based on its history and its processes, establishing challenges to develop a more dynamic and flexible organization (Ashkenas et al, 1998), which overcomes the inertia of change (Rumelt, 1998), with a marked emphasis on people, teams and networking with other organizations (Dertouzos, 1999), under a leadership capable of promoting and managing this internal transformation

Modern societies are characterized by being subjected to processes of structural, continuous and relatively rapid change. The growing social influence of scientific-technological progress, together with the open nature of economies and the considerable increase in the degree of internationalization in economic and social relations, constitute just some of the causes that, together with their interactions, allow to explain that state of permanent change in which we are installed.

Every organization is different in size, structure, business, and operational processes. However, they all agree on the need to optimize the use of their resources and have a simplified operation. To achieve this objective, the implementation of business solutions of different magnitudes and specifications, adapted to the needs of each company, according to its type of business, is a current reality.

Within the business world and, of organizations in general, "Business Intelligence" is a concept supported by a new way of doing things, possible thanks to the advances in Information Systems and Information Technologies. Information.

Information is a critical factor for business success, information that is more abundant and diverse every day, from multiple sources, which comes to us in different formats, which must be collected, ordered, exploited, and manipulated to obtain added value, form part of the competitive strategy of organizations.

The use of information as a strategic weapon, supported by computer tools, containing analytical applications, which help organizations maximize their performance in business, generating operational efficiency, is part of Business Intelligence. Likewise, Knowledge Management helps to obtain a greater understanding and understanding of the environment and processes from one's own experience in people and organizations.

Today companies undertake a wide variety of initiatives to achieve their objectives, under the influence of 5 fundamental elements: speed of change, innovation of new business models, new relationship structures between companies, their customers and partners, connectivity of people, organizations and countries, and the value of knowledge resident in the company (Davis & Meyer 2000).

This gives rise to a new digital economy, where the companies that best understand and incorporate these elements into their business culture will be the ones that obtain a leadership position. These organizations will use integrated, Internet-enabled computing applications that interconnect the entire organization to achieve operational excellence (Davis & Meyer 2000).

If the information of a company is not managed properly and is not available for use at the right time, it can lose all value in the decision-making process. This makes clear the need for processes and tools that facilitate the management and interpretation of the data produced by the operation and production systems.

The tools aimed at addressing the elements of the Digital Economy (Speed, Innovation, Relationships, Connectivity and Knowledge), contribute to achieving operational excellence in a digital world. Comprehensive tools help corporations understand the dynamics of the connected economy to define vision and strategies, as well as develop and implement solutions (Davis & Meyer 2000).

The Decision Support Tools (DSS) currently offered (designed) are characterized by bringing together all the information of the company through Information Technology tools to have timely data that support all its processes, on three basic phases: Information Extraction, Information Exploitation, Information Management.

Information Extraction. In this phase, tools are used that facilitate the access and extraction of data stored on multiple platforms and databases (SQL Server, DB2, Informix, Sybase, Oracle, etc.) that allow the simple interpretation and definition of business rules necessary for the transformation of information data.

Exploitation of Information. In this phase, tools such as: Executive Information Systems, Decision Support Systems and Models are used, aimed at the end user, where the user is guaranteed efficient access to the data and allows them to generate their own queries.

Information management. The use of tools that include Data Warehouse managers, guarantee the integrity and timeliness of the data.

Enterprise Resource Planning solutions are offered for companies of various sizes. These ERP solutions, such as SAP, which allow integrating the business processes of companies of any size, uniting complex and different functions to help the organization to work more easily and with a vision of service focused on its customers.

The SAP R / 3 solution allows integrating essential areas for the optimal operation of the company, such as finance, human resources, manufacturing, sales and logistics, in order to optimize the value chain, strengthen relationships with customers and make decisions more suitable.

In specific situations, Knowledge Management includes the systematic process of finding, collecting, selecting, organizing, extracting, preserving and presenting information. Specific Knowledge Management activities help focus the organization in its efforts to obtain, store and use knowledge for specific goals such as problem solving, dynamic learning, strategic planning and decision making.

It also serves to consolidate and protect the intellectual assets of the organization, increases corporate competencies through the development of organizational intelligence and contributes to the formation of dynamic and flexible companies.

Business intelligence is achieved through Knowledge Management, supported by Information Technologies that include SSD tools and the contribution of experts.

The Decision Support Systems tools, listed for their increasing complexity, are currently used more frequently to support structured, semi-structured and unstructured decision making (Turban & Iroson):

Transaction Processing (TPS): systems that process the daily and routine operational activities of the organization are made up of several cycles of interconnected systems.

Management Information Systems (MIS): integrated user-machine system to provide information past, present or projections thereof, related to internal operations, administration and decision-making functions of an organization and its environment. It incorporates other knowledge-based tools, such as TPS, MRS, DSS, OIS.

Decision Support Systems (DSS): system that provides relevant information to executives, to make decisions about semi-structured tasks. They are characterized by their interactivity, frequency of use, variety of user, flexibility, development, environmental interaction, interorganizational communication, access to databases and simplicity.

Expert Systems (ES): systems that model the behavior of a human expert who fulfills the task of solving problems for which an algorithm is not available. They are interactive systems that allow the creation of knowledge bases, to answer questions, clear up doubts and suggest courses of action simulating the reasoning process of a human to solve problems in a specific area of human knowledge.

Executive Information Systems (EIS): a data-oriented system that provides information through a friendly interface to help executives improve the management of their planning, monitoring and analysis of their processes.

Neural Networks (NN): data processing system that simulates elementary functions of the nervous network of the human brain, to identify the relevant information on a large amount of data, explaining the phenomenon or process that has generated this data. This artificial intelligence system develops the functions of an expert in a subject, capable of coping with new situations with great efficiency and imagining solutions that were not part of their training process. These networks are used in areas that require the solution of problems related to the classification and grouping of objects or data, with the prediction and forecast of values, as well as with the control of processes.They allow the recognition of patterns through the use of historical information to generate learning and support administrators and specialists in the construction of predictions and forecasts based on past cases.

Office Automation (OA): system that allows the implementation of techniques to increase the levels of productivity and efficiency in the workflows of administrative personnel, through multiple technologies (data, voice, image), which support a wide range of applications (information processing, communications, etc.). This software performs routine and repetitive work process tasks to improve the performance of activities carried out within a company, allowing people to focus on activities where they can really add value.

The applications of these tools, the most complex, are given from the multidimensional analysis of corporate data:

They provide the ability to manipulate and explore company data from every conceivable angle, thereby gaining a truly multi-dimensional view of the business.

From the company's database, the reports, which can be very sophisticated, are manipulated interactively.

The data mining tool allows managers and people involved in decision making to discover hidden patterns and trends in the data and find unsuspected correlations between them without requiring knowledge of statistical techniques.

The data modeling and projection tool uses advanced neural network techniques to help the analyst discover complex relationships and provide a reliable and accurate forecast for all types of business information.

4. Conclusion

The degree of internationalization in economic and social relations and the growing influence of technological advances are some of the reasons why organizations must develop the "ability" to adapt to changes in environments.

Business Intelligence now lies in the competence to make decisions, for dynamic approaches to problems and opportunities, and to develop the internal resources and capacities of the organization. Generate strategic changes built with the resources of the organization, to develop a more flexible and dynamic organization, with the support of technologies for decision making and the intervention of business experts. It is important to understand that decision support tools are just that, tools, and that selection and use simplify many operations and processes in the business, but that decision makers are the cornerstone.

Factors that it takes into account, to a greater or lesser degree, such as the speed of change, innovation of new business models, new relationship structures between companies, their clients and partners, the connectivity of people, organizations and countries, and the value of knowledge resident in the company; their knowledge and skills and the use of intelligent systems for decision making, this integration is called Business Intelligence, which generates competitive advantages.

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