The general purpose of this article is to provide an easy, understandable and understandable reference source for the reader, regarding business intelligence, this being a combination of several aspects, which in good conjunction allow the manipulation and transformation of data, which will have information, which will therefore allow knowledge, having as a specific objective, serve as a strategic plan for the company or organization, and a basis for decision-making.
Keywords
Business intelligence, utility, decision making, information technology, administrative process, fragmentation
Introduction
When organizations are studied, there is a fundamental element in their development and especially in the possibilities for the future that they may have from the point of view of competitiveness, productivity and decision-making. Within these parameters, the administration and management of information become fundamental aspects that help them to be competitive, for which they have to generate a strategy for information management. (Davila)
That is why proper management is essential for the success of the organization, for its growth, positioning and consolidation. In addition, we are currently immersed in more information, as well as technological advances that have allowed better administration.
With the advances in information technology and telecommunications, the data and information of an organization are dispersed in many sources and it is necessary to create schemes that allow to collect everything of importance for the business and place it in a simple and clear way available for all users who are the insiders of the business and who can take full advantage of the detailed analysis of this knowledge for the good of the company. 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. (Davila)
Background (Laureano, 2013)
Before 1960 the information of the companies was kept manually on paper and a large space was required to archive all that information. Later, with the appearance of the computer, the information began to be carried in digital files, however this brings as a risk difficulty in handling it and possible losses if there were not adequate backup policies.
In 1969 Edgar Codd introduced the concept of databases, and these began to be used in organizations, however highly specialized personnel were required to administer these databases and to load the information. Business applications, along with databases, provided an easy way to collect information from organizations.
Subsequently, a series of problems arose such as difficulty in accessing information, the data began to be in multiple locations, it was tried to solve the problem of access to information through reports; but these were initially very flat.
As a solution to this around 1980, the concept of data warehouse arose and its main authors are Ralph Kimball and Richard Inmon.
Now, with organized and centralized data, the needs for information consumption by companies increased and the first business intelligence tools emerged, which provided reporting and analysis solutions.
For years, the function of informatics within organizations has been considered as a tool to support operational functions, according to Cohen & Asín (2005).
According to Arrubias (2000), this perception must change since information technologies cannot only be considered as instruments for cost reduction. They should be used to better manage the information available to the company, in order to achieve competitive advantages and thus generate new benefits. (Calzada & Abreu, 2009)
Concepts
Value chain: made up of data, information and they integrate knowledge, where the data allows the registration of company events, these data are grouped into information, which allows responding to events, which in synergy allows knowledge, where seeks to anticipate events. (Uceda Martos, 2013)
Business Intelligence (Business Intelligence) emerged in 1989 by Howard Dresner Lord who proposed business intelligence as a general term to describe the concepts and methods used to improve decision - making processes through the use of systems. (Laureano, 2013)
“ Business Intelligence (BI) is an umbrella term that encompasses the processes, tools, and technologies for converting data into information, information into knowledge, and plans to effectively conduct business activities. BI encompasses the technologies of datawarehousing the processes on the 'back end10', queries, reports, analysis and the tools to display information (these are BI tools) and the processes on the 'front end'. " (Lluis Cano, 2015)
Development
Knowledge administration (Peña Ayala, 2006)
To understand the Knowledge Management environment, it is necessary to first consider three key concepts that are: Data, information and knowledge.
- Data: they are isolated objective facts without meaning or explanation. It is the raw material for the creation of information. Information is the result of the organization and treatment that is applied to the data to produce an additional meaning to that provided in isolation. Knowledge: this represents a greater degree of abstraction and synthesis of the meaning of the information by associating the context in which it is inscribed.
Knowledge management is a discipline that articulates people, processes, content and technology, Knowledge is valuable only if it is accessible to those who need it, Knowledge originates and resides in the brain of people, so the generation, transfer and application of knowledge should be encouraged and rewarded, given that the administration.
Knowledge is more of a cultural and organizational challenge than a technology issue. The only sustainable advantage for the company is based on the collective knowledge it possesses, how efficiently it uses it and how quickly it applies the new knowledge acquired.
Among the explicit forms of knowledge in the organization are: Patents are a form of codified knowledge, manuals, documentation that reveals production processes, reports and files of printed and magnetic documents.
Knowledge management is the process by which individual learning and experience can be represented, shared and used to promote the improvement of individual knowledge and organizational value It is a recurring process that allows: Identifying the knowledge that an organization possesses or needs (intellectual capital), to solve a specific problem, implement internal mechanisms for the generation, transfer and application of said knowledge, build critical capacities that favor innovation, and increase the value of the organization.
Information, knowledge and organizations. (Davila)
Among the elements that offer organizations the possibility of advancing in this globalized world full of competition, it is found as something fundamental and important
"The value of resident knowledge in the company"
According to this approach, the value of knowledge is fundamental for the growth of organizations, so knowledge can be defined and classified as:
- Tacit Knowledge. o Knowledge of the market and the business. or "Know How".
- "Feeling"
- Data turned into information. o Tables, Graphs, Indicators o Descriptive and predictive information (Data Mining)
Previous stages to achieve the business intelligence and knowledge management process (Davila)
Below is an outline of what information means in the organization and the stages that must be followed to achieve the business intelligence and knowledge management process.
Information process in the organization and its four stages. (Davila, p. 3)
Extraction stage
It corresponds to the stage in which the transactional systems are in charge of capturing, processing and generating the official information of the company, where the legal requirements of accounting, control and other elements that are used for the daily operation of the organizations. At this stage, commercial and administrative applications such as accounting, payroll, personnel, inventories, billing and all those that solve a specific problem of the company, are producing general and specific information according to the needs of the users but that in general They are designed to produce the reports and documents that are required in the daily, weekly and monthly control and status of the regular operations of the company.At this point, the level of strategic decision-making is very incipient, since the objectives are different.
Consolidation stage
After the in-depth business and managerial analysis process, the information generated by the transactional systems and external sources is selected to create the data warehouse with all the necessary data to be able to carry out the different analyzes required by the management to making decisions that allow the competitiveness of the organization.
At this point, it is necessary to apply methodologies that allow obtaining refined information that can be used in a simple way for the analyzes to be carried out. A widely used methodology is the creation of Data Marts, which correspond to factual tables generated according to the needs of a particular department and that later, together with the other Data Marts generated in the organization, make up the Data Warehouse.
Exploitation stage
In this stage is where the existing tools begin to be applied to leave the winery data ready in the hands of the users, who must be able to start taking advantage of and exploiting the already refined and filtered information that is in the data warehouse. At this stage we have two technologies that allow us to carry out a data exploitation process, in order to make better decisions supported by real information from our organization.
Display stage
Once the exploitation processes have been carried out and the appropriate tools have been applied for this process, there comes a stage where what was done in the previous stage can be improved by applying tools that allow a better visualization of the results, and help to know what is happening in a graphic way and capable of taking advantage of the concepts of colors and graphics that facilitate the visualization of the results. At this point, it is essential to identify indicators that facilitate data analysis and allow the creation of the famous “Balance Scored Card” dashboards.
Some definitions of business intelligence
According to (Oracle) An interesting definition for business intelligence or BI, according to the Data Warehouse Institute, defines it as the combination of technology, tools and processes that allow me to transform my stored data into information, this information in knowledge and this knowledge directed to a business plan or strategy. Business intelligence should be part of the business strategy, it allows you to optimize the use of resources, monitor the fulfillment of the company's objectives and the ability to make good decisions in order to obtain better results.
Business Intelligence: Value of providing facts and information to support decision-making. Process that par excellence extracts, manipulates, processes, combines, explores and analyzes data to generate knowledge. (Uceda Martos, 2013)
The business intelligence is the process by which companies collect data, analyze, and reapplied the result in order to make better use of its own model and improve its performance from a strategic and operational perspective. (Engineering)
“ BI is an interactive process to explore and analyze structured information about an area (usually stored in a data warehouse), to discover trends or patterns, from which to derive ideas and draw conclusions. The Business Intelligence process includes communicating findings and making changes. The areas include customers, suppliers, products, services and competitors. " (Lluis Cano, 2015)
The Business Intelligence is the term seeks to characterize a wide variety of technologies, software platforms, application and process specifications. (Peña Ayala, 2006)
Business intelligence solutions (Business Intelligence “BI”) (Uceda Martos, 2013)
It can be classified into three branches and which answer certain questions, a general description of them below
- Historical BI or What happened? Analytical BI or What happened and why? Predictive BI or What could happen?
Historical BI Solutions
- The data is collected from the applications that process the transactions and its subsequent analysis helps the decision maker to understand what happened and which situations were good or bad. Through this type of process, the optimal set of products for each department in each one of the stores.From a construction point of view, these are the simplest applications.
Analytics BI Solutions
- It is generally an iterative process. Data is collected, as in the previous case, from OLTP systems but real-time data is added, finally, the process is done by trial and error. The company needs maturity to face incorrect decisions Instead of looking for culprits, the process should be reviewed to identify the causes of the erroneous recommendation, remedy the cause, and use the system again. Such an application could help the area manager to fine-tune pricing policies and promotions daily, based on checkout data along with inventory levels in the store and distribution center.
Predictive BI Solutions
- These applications integrate data from internal and external sources to the organization, and statistical and mathematical tools, to generate information about possible future events. Obviously, this type of application, which depends on external sources, is not easy to build and therefore they are more Popular applications that try to foresee the future by projecting historical data.
What are the benefits of Business Intelligence? (Lluis Cano, 2015)
One of the basic objectives of information systems is to help us make decisions. When a person in charge has to make a decision, she asks for or seeks information, which will help her reduce uncertainty.
The benefits that can be obtained through the use of BI can be of different types:
- Tangible benefits, for example: cost reduction, income generation, reduction of time for different business activities. Intangible benefits: the fact that we have the information available for decision-making will make more users use this information to make decisions and improve our competitive position. Strategic benefits: All those that facilitate the formulation of the strategy, that is, to which customers, markets or with which products to target.
Components of business intelligence (Lluis Cano, 2015)
In the following graph we see the different components of Business Intelligence
Components of business intelligence. (Lluis Cano, 2015, p. 93)
The components are:
- Information sources, from which we will start to feed the datawarehouse with information. ETL50 process of extraction, transformation and loading of the data in the datawarehouse. Before storing data in a data warehouse, it must be transformed, cleaned, filtered and redefined. Normally, the information we have in transactional systems is not prepared for decision-making, the data warehouse itself, with the Metadata or Data Dictionary. It seeks to store the data in a way that maximizes its flexibility, ease of access and administration. The OLAP51 engine, which should provide us with calculation capacity, queries, planning functions, forecasting and scenario analysis in large volumes of data. Currently there are other technological alternatives to OLAP,that we will also develop in this chapter. Visualization tools, which will allow us to analyze and navigate through them.
The cycle of business intelligence (Peña Ayala, 2006)
Business Intelligence in a performance management platform that represents the cycle in which companies establish their objectives, analyze their progress, reflect, act, measure their success and start a new phase. Its cycle consists of four stages, namely: Analysis, reflection, action and measurement.
- The analysis begins by determining the data collected. The selection is based on a basic understanding and assumptions of how the organization operates, considering what is relevant to customers, suppliers, employees, the factors that affect inputs, production, cost and quality. The collection of everything that should be known about the company is known as a mental model. This concept applies at the level of people and the organization as a whole. Mental models are essential for executives to make decisions, since they represent the basis for recognizing a good idea, but also constitute the limits not to see aspects that are afuera.La reflectionIt involves a careful study of the facts and the situation, in addition to considering the direction that the case study can take. The scenario covered by the reflection depends on the hierarchical level that is doing it and the consideration of the external environment. The reflection is born of an analysis free of questions that only executives can ask and that is directed to the discovery of relevant patterns. A finding some facts that may be contradictory to the principles established implies a work of conviction and overcoming resistance to change, however for the initiative to succeed, it is necessary to share and shall cleave to aliados.La connection actionThe Business Intelligence cycle is through the decision-making process, where actions occur as a result of decisions. Decisions to be based on the Business Intelligence provides better able to identify opportunities, guide actions, experimentation, testing and retroalimentación.La measurementseeks to evaluate results by comparing them against quantitative standards and originally raised expectations; which gives life to another cycle of analysis, reflection, action and measurement. In Business Intelligence, standards can be established for benchmarking tests that facilitate monitoring performance and provide feedback for each functional area of the business. The metrics correspond to the key performance indicators that are generated from exploring large amounts of integrated data from heterogeneous sources that are evaluated by algorithms to discover, infer, and calculate relevant information, resulting in consistent reports on activity criteria that the executives consider and use as arguments for their decisions.
What business intelligence should offer (Uceda Martos, 2013)
- A technology platform integrated into every business process Adding value at every step of the process and providing a single version of reality Expanded and enhanced access to analytics capabilities Custom user interfaces A range of solutions to meet the demand for information
Advantages of business intelligence (Engineering)
- Cost control, by having a solution that allows you to easily manage the different programs that are in the different departments of your company. Improvement of collaboration and the quality of decisions, facilitating access to information at all levels of the organization. Orients technological solutions towards the user, because it reduces learning times through the use of everyday tools. It provides a deep vision of the business, through an integrated system of uses: Scorecards, Dashboards, Reports, Data Mining, and Analytical Storage. Assistant to executives to plan and forecast work, presenting a common description of a company's business processes.
Example of a business intelligence solution, with added value. (Oracle)
What is a Business Intelligence architecture solution?
It is important to visualize in some way that you understand a business intelligence architecture. Figure 4 represents this architecture. Let's analyze this diagram from left to right.
- The first drawings represent the different data sources (essbase cubes, Oracle databases, Sql Server, mainframe, flat files, xml files, Excel sheets, etc.) that could be used to extract data from multiple sources simultaneously. drawing represents the process of extraction, transformation and loading (ETL). This process is in which the fields to be used are defined from the heterogeneous sources, if they need some type of modification and / or transformation and where I want to locate this data, this process is known as “mapping”. The third drawing represents the data repository. In this repository are the transformed data represented visually in multidimensional models, dimensions and data tables. There is a process between the data repository and the user access interface,This is the BI engine that allows me to enable components, manage queries, monitor processes, calculations, metrics. The user access interface allows interaction with the data, graphically representing the results of the queries and the management indicators that were built.
Business intelligence architecture. (Oracle, p. 3)
What is Oracle's offering?
Oracle as part of its business intelligence offering beyond a BI solution, offers even more important added value. Oracle provides its customers with the power of information. This information is represented in the intersection that we can see in the Venn diagram, figure 5.
It is the point of value between data sources and those analytical tools, reports, viewers, etc. that allow companies to transform this information into knowledge and this knowledge into an action plan with the ability to manage the company effectively.
Business Intelligence offered by Oracle. (Oracle, p. 4)
Conclusions
The business intelligence tools and the analytical user profile have evolved over the years. In addition, the level of awareness, the need and the evolution of the market have led companies to consider Business Intelligence a priority before management and decision-makers. (Oracle)
Therefore, for organizations to be competitive, they must execute a business intelligence process, which due to its stages of collection, processing and storage of company data, being collected by information systems. Which must be treated, so that in their final phase they serve in decision-making and the fulfillment of the organization's objectives.
Thesis topic: "The implementation of business intelligence, as a factor of competitiveness and positioning of Fricongelados"
Objective: To know and evaluate the parameters and indicators that demonstrate the competitive advantages of implementing business intelligence, as a new tool for meeting the objectives of Fricongelados.
Bibliography
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